Want to live a life of greatness? Fortunately, the greats throughout history have left us instructions. All we have to do is study and practice them. The key word is practice. May the following inspire you to find your greatness and share it with the world.
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AMBITION
No pessimist ever discovered the secret of the stars or sailed an uncharted land, or opened a new doorway for the human spirit. ~ Helen Keller
Life is too short to be small. ~ Benjamin Disraeli
One can never consent to creep when one feels an impulse to soar. ~ Helen Keller
No one can give you freedom. Nobody can give you equality or justice or anything. If you're a man, you take it. ~ Malcolm X
Science may have found a cure for most evils; but it has found no remedy for the worst of them all ~ the apathy of human beings. ~ Helen Keller
All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence. ~ Martin Luther King Jr.
ACTION
If you spend too much time thinking about a thing, you'll never get it done. ~Bruce Lee
I don't wait for moods. You accomplish nothing if you do that. Your mind must know it has got to get down to work. ~ Pearl S. Buck
Take the first step in faith. You don't have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step. ~ Martin Luther King Jr.
Even if you are on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there. ~Will Rogers
Everything you want is out there waiting for you to ask. Everything you want also wants you. But you have to take action to get it. ~ Jack Canfield
A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds. ~ Francis Bacon
If you shoot for the stars and hit the moon, it's OK. But you've got to shoot for something. A lot of people don't even shoot. ~ Confucius
BELIEF
All that is is the result of what we have thought. ~ Buddha
Dream as if you'll live forever. Live as if you'll die today. ~ James Dean
You become what you think about all day long. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Never underestimate the power of dreams and the influence of the human spirit. We are all the same in this notion: The potential for greatness lives within each of us. ~ Wilma RudolphAs you think, so shall you become. ~ Bruce Lee
We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope. ~ Martin Luther King Jr.
The more man meditates upon good thoughts, the better will be his world and the world at large. ~ Confucius
COURAGE
When a resolute young fellow steps up to the great bully, the world, and takes him boldly by the beard, he is often surprised to find it comes off in his hand, and that it was only tied on to scare away the timid adventurers. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare; it is because we do not dare that things are difficult. ~ Seneca
Most of our obstacles would melt away if, instead of cowering before them, we should make up our minds to walk boldly through them. ~ Orison Swett Marden
Courage and perseverance have a magical talisman, before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish into air. ~ John Quincy Adams
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. ~ Aristotle
Courage, it would seem, is nothing less than the power to overcome danger, misfortune, fear, injustice, while continuing to affirm inwardly that life with all its sorrows is good; that everything is meaningful even if in a sense beyond our understanding; and that there is always tomorrow. ~ Dorothy Thompson
Moral cowardice that keeps us from speaking our minds is as dangerous to this country as irresponsible talk. The right way is not always the popular and easy way. Standing for right when it is unpopular is a true test of moral character. ~ Margaret Chase Smith
DISCIPLINE
Nothing will work unless you do. ~ Maya Angelou
Many persons have a wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self~gratification but through fidelity to a worthy purpose. ~ Helen Keller
We ain't done, yet. ~ Adm. Wayne E. Mayer, USN (ret.)
The successful person has the habit of doing the things failures don't like to do. They don't like doing them either necessarily. But their disliking is subordinated to the strength of their purpose. ~ E.M. Gray
Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishments. ~ Jim Rohn
HEALTH
I finally realized that being grateful to my body was key to giving more love to myself. ~ Oprah Winfrey
It is health which is real wealth, not pieces of silver and gold. ~ Mahatma Gandhi
PERSEVERANCE
Look at a stone cutter hammering away at his rock, perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred~and~first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not the last blow that did it, but all that had gone before. ~Jacob A. Riis
Nobody trips over mountains. It is the small pebble that causes you to stumble. Pass all the pebbles in your path and you will find you have crossed the mountain. ~Author Unknown
It's not that I'm so smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer. ~ Albert Einstein
The drops of rain make a hole in the stone not by violence but by oft falling. ~ Lucretius
If we are facing in the right direction, all we have to do is keep on walking. ~ Buddhist Saying
Strength does not come from winning. Your struggles develop your strengths. You go through hardships and decide not to surrender, that is strength. ~ Arnold Schwarzenegger
Don't let the fear of the time it will take to accomplish something stand in the way of your doing it. The time will pass anyway; we might just as well put that passing time to the best possible use. ~ Earl Nightingale
THINKING INDEPENDENTLY
Abraham Lincoln did not go to Gettysburg having commissioned a poll to find out what would sell in Gettysburg. There were no people with percentages for him, cautioning him about this group or that group or what they found in exit polls a year earlier. When will we have the courage of Lincoln? ~ Robert Coles
If people around you aren't going anywhere, if their dreams are no bigger than hanging out on the corner, or if they're dragging you down, get rid of them. Negative people can sap your energy so fast, and they can take your dreams from you, too. ~ Earvin "Magic" Johnson
Retire into yourself as much as possible. Associate with people who are likely to improve you. Welcome those whom you are capable of improving. The process is a mutual one. People learn as they teach. ~ Seneca
A foolish faith in authority is the worst enemy of truth.~ Albert Einstein
It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes short again and again, who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause, who at best knows achievement and who at the worst if he fails at least fails while daring greatly so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat. ~ Theodore Roosevelt
If you shape your life according to nature, you will never be poor; if according to people's opinions, you will never be rich." ~ Seneca
VITALITY & ENERGY
See what daily exercise does for one. ~ Seneca
Do you remember the things you were worrying about a year ago? How did they work out? Didn't you waste a lot of fruitless energy on account of most of them? Didn't most of them turn out all right after all? ~ Dale Carnegie
Most people spend more time and energy going around problems than in trying to solve them. ~ Henry Ford
Energy and persistence alter all things. ~ Benjamin Franklin
The key that unlocks energy is desire. It's also the key to a long and interesting life. If we expect to create any drive, any real force within ourselves, we have to get excited. ~ Earl Nightingale
Life begets life. Energy creates energy. It is by spending oneself that one becomes rich. ~ Sarah Bernhardt
