self-improvement quotes

I never expected to be anybody important.

Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.

Men acquire a particular quality by constantly acting in a particular way.

What is necessary to change a person is to change his awareness of himself.

Don’t bring your need to the marketplace, bring your skill. If you don’t feel well, tell your doctor, but not the marketplace. If you need money, go to the bank, but not the marketplace.

Nothing has such power to broaden the mind as the ability to investigate systematically and truly all that comes under thy observation in life.

The art of being a slave is to rule one’s master.

I have a memory, and I can just eliminate mistakes when they come up because I’ve already made them.

For good nurture and education implant good constitutions.

Failure is nature’s plan to prepare you for great responsibilities.

Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value.

There are basically two types of people. People who accomplish things, and people who claim to have accomplished things. The first group is less crowded.

A man, as a general rule, owes very little to what he is born with – a man is what he makes of himself.

Time and money spent in helping men to do more for themselves is far better than mere giving.

If I am walking with two other men, each of them will serve as my teacher. I will pick out the good points of the one and imitate them, and the bad points of the other and correct them in myself.

A learned blockhead is a greater blockhead than an ignorant one.

Look within. Within is the fountain of good, and it will ever bubble up, if thou wilt ever dig.

No man is hurt but by himself.

Modesty is the color of virtue.

We become wiser by adversity; prosperity destroys our appreciation of the right.

To be wronged is nothing unless you continue to remember it.

Mine is better than ours.

Such as are your habitual thoughts, such also will be the character of your mind; for the soul is dyed by the thoughts.

You can bear your own faults, and why not a fault in your wife?

Man becomes great exactly in the degree in which he works for the welfare of his fellow-men.

Seek ye first the good things of the mind, and the rest will either be supplied or its loss will not be felt.

You’re just left with yourself all the time, whatever you do anyway. You’ve got to get down to your own God in your own temple. It’s all down to you, mate.

Because your own strength is unequal to the task, do not assume that it is beyond the powers of man; but if anything is within the powers and province of man, believe that it is within your own compass also.

Don’t let schooling interfere with your education.

Let us train our minds to desire what the situation demands.

There are 309 million people out there that are trying to improve their lot in life. And we’ve got a system that allows them to do it.

Don’t just read the easy stuff. You may be entertained by it, but you will never grow from it.

Learning without thought is labor lost; thought without learning is perilous.

A noble man compares and estimates himself by an idea which is higher than himself; and a mean man, by one lower than himself. The one produces aspiration; the other ambition, which is the way in which a vulgar man aspires.

Always first draw fresh breath after outbursts of vanity and complacency.

Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning.

To go beyond is as wrong as to fall short.

I think it’s quite great to set yourself a big challenge, and then you’ve got another reason for keeping fit.

If I am no longer disturbed myself, I will deal less with disturbed people, but I don’t regret having concerned myself with them because I think most of us are disturbed.

It is not enough to conquer; one must learn to seduce.

Quality is not an act, it is a habit.

Let not your mind run on what you lack as much as on what you have already.

Think of yourself as on the threshold of unparalleled success. A whole, clear, glorious life lies before you. Achieve! Achieve!

Those who lack the courage will always find a philosophy to justify it.

The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity. The fears are paper tigers. You can do anything you decide to do. You can act to change and control your life; and the procedure, the process is its own reward.

Do not look for approval except for the consciousness of doing your best.

As a matter of self-preservation, a man needs good friends or ardent enemies, for the former instruct him and the latter take him to task.

He that composes himself is wiser than he that composes a book.

Never do things others can do and will do if there are things others cannot do or will not do.

We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.

The more one does and sees and feels, the more one is able to do, and the more genuine may be one’s appreciation of fundamental things like home, and love, and understanding companionship.

The best of us must sometimes eat our words.

People who are unable to motivate themselves must be content with mediocrity, no matter how impressive their other talents.

The need to be right is the sign of a vulgar mind.

I can handle pain.

Meditation has been a loyal friend to me. It has helped me write my books.

Moral excellence comes about as a result of habit. We become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts.

Tomorrow, every Fault is to be amended; but that Tomorrow never comes.

I don’t want to hear the word ‚can’t.‘

I invented my life by taking for granted that everything I did not like would have an opposite, which I would like.