"You're alive. Do something. The directive in life, the moral imperative was so uncomplicated. It could be expressed in single words, not complete sentences. It sounded like this: Look. Listen. Choose. Act."
Barbara Hall, A Summons to New Orleans, 2000

"A joyful life is an individual creation that cannot be copied from a recipe."
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, 1990

"It is no profit to have learned well, if you neglect to do well."
Publilius Syrus (~100 BC)

"Reading is no substitute for action."
Colleen Wainwright, Communicatrix, 07-26-08

"To do two things at once is to do neither."
Publilius Syrus, (~100 BC)

"I've failed more times than I can remember. But I never chalked any of them up as failures in my head, because I learned so much in the process each time. So now, when I’ve finally reached a point where things seem to fall into place with far less effort, I can’t help but think about all those times where I didn’t succeed over the course of the last eight years. And I look back in fondness, because those lessons learned are the reason I’m here.

I actually shouldn’t even call them failures, because they were really just attempts. There’s a huge difference there. Everyone has failures, but most people never attempt things just for the sake of trying out something that looks fun, interesting, or challenging. For some reason, a lot of us reach a point where we stop doing things for the hell of it.

And therein lies the best career advice I could possibly dispense: just DO things. Chase after the things that interest you and make you happy. Stop acting like you have a set path, because you don't. No one does. You shouldn't be trying to check off the boxes of life; they aren't real and they were created by other people, not you."
Charlie Hoehn

"I can accept failure, but I can't accept not trying."
Michael Jordan, US basketball player (1963 - )

"An idea not coupled with action will never get any bigger than the brain cell it occupied."
Arnold Glasow

"Continuous effort is the key to unlocking our potential."
Black Elk, Native American

"We would accomplish many more things if we did not think of them as impossible."
Vince Lombardi, US football coach (1913 - 1970)

"First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do."
Epictetus (55 AD - 135 AD)

"Don't be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better."
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 - 1882)

"I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand."
Confucius (551 BC - 479 BC)

"Don't blow it - good planets are hard to find."
Quoted in Time

"It would be better to play football than read the Gita..."
Swami Vivekananda (1863 - 1902), using a powerful metaphor for the way he wanted the youth of his time to evolve — fearless, strong and independent in the right sense. It was a call to action, to karma, rather than passivity and inaction.

"Desire, ask, believe, receive."
Stella Terrill Mann

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbour. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."
Mark Twain

"Let your plans be dark and as impenetratable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt."
Sun Tzu ((ca. 500 BC)) "The Art of war"

"To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards of men."
Abraham Lincoln (American 16th US president (1861-65), who brought about the emancipation of the slaves. 1809-1865)

"We must become the change we want to see."
Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948)