Quotations

"The willingness to accept responsibility for one's own life is the source from which self-respect springs." - Joan Didion

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"To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment." -  Ralph Waldo Emerson

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  "Your living is determined not so much by what life brings to you as by the attitude you bring to life; not so much by what happens to you as by the way your mind looks at what happens." - Khalil Gibran

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"Some people drift along like a cork on a river, feeling that they cannot do anything except drift, moment to moment. This is an attitude of mind. Everyone can be constructive even in tiny ways." - Edward de Bono


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"We do not believe in ourselves until someone reveals that deep inside us is valuable, worth listening to, worthy of our trust, sacred to our touch. Once we believe in ourselves we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight or any experience that reveals the human spirit." - Edward E. Cummings

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  "Those who really seek the path to Enlightenment dictate terms to their mind. Then they proceed with strong determination." - Buddha

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"The tension between 'yes' and 'no,' between 'I can' and 'I cannot,' makes us feel that, in so many instances, human life is an interminable debate with one's self." - Anatole Broyard

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"Wisdom is the most important part of happiness." -
  Sophocles

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"A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and gets to bed at night, and in between he does what he wants to do." -
Bob Dylan
 
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"There is no greater delight than to be conscious of sincerity on self-examination." - 
Mencius Mengzi Meng-tse

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"Fear is not in the habit of speaking truth. When perfect sincerity is expected, perfect freedom must be allowed; nor has anyone who is apt to be angry when he hears the truth any cause to wonder that he does not hear it." -
  Tacitus
 
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"If you want to be respected by others the great thing is to respect yourself. Only by that, only by self-respect will you compel others to respect you." -
  Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky

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"The moment you open your mouth to say one thing about the nature of reality, you automatically have a whole set of enemies who've already said reality is something else." -  Robert M. Pirsig

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"I don't like work, but I like what is in work, the chance to find yourself. Your own reality, for yourself, not for others, which no other man can ever know." -
 Joseph Conrad