"Nothing splendid has every been achieved except by those who dared believe that something inside them was superior to circumstances."
--Bruce Barton

"Dare to be naive."
--R. Buckminster Fuller

Days
"There will be something, anguish or elation, that is peculiar to this day alone. I rise from sleep and say: Hail to the morning! Come down to me, my beautiful unknown."
--Jessica Powers

"One never knows what each day is going to bring. The important thing is to be open and ready for it."
--Henry Moore

Death
"It is possible to provide security against other ills, but as far as death is concerned, we men live in a city without walls."
--Epicurus

"Once the game is over, the king and the pawn go back in the same box."
--Italian Proverb

"In the last analysis, it is our conception of death which decides our answers to all the questions that life puts to us."
--Dag Hammarskjöld, Diaries (1958)

"Civilizations die from suicide, not by murder."
--Arnold Toynbee

"The poets' scrolls will outlive the monuments of stone. Genius survives; all else is claimed by death."
--Edmund Spenser (1552-1599), English poet

"When you cease to make a contribution, you begin to die."
--Eleanor Roosevelt

"On no subject are our ideas more warped and pitiable than on death. Let children walk with nature, let them see the beautiful blendings and communions of life and death, their joyous inseparable unity, as taught in woods and meadows, plains and mountains and streams of our blessed star, and they will learn that death is stingless indeed, and as beautiful as life, and that the grave has no victory, for it never fights. All is divine harmony."
--John Muir

Debt
"Debt is a trap which man sets and baits himself, and then deliberately gets into."
--Josh Billings

"Home life ceases to be free and beautiful as soon as it is founded on borrowing and debt."
--Henrik Ibsen

"Be not made a beggar by banqueting on borrowing."
--Bible, Apocrypha, Ecclesiasticus 18:13

"Who goeth a borrowing / Goeth a sorrowing."
--Thomas Tusser

Decision
"There is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision."
--William James (1842-1910) US philosopher, psychologist

"In any moment of decision the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing."
--Theodore Roosevelt

"Five frogs are sitting on a log. Four decide to jump off. How many are left?
Answer: five
Why?
Because there's a difference between deciding and doing."
--Mark L. Feldman & Michael F. Spratt in 'Five Frogs on a Log'

"You stop being average the day you decide to become a Champion, because the average person won't make that decision."
--Tom Hopkins

"When making a decision of minor importance, I have always found it advantageous to consider all the pros and cons. In vital matters, however, such as the choice of a mate or a profession, the decision should come from the unconscious, from somewhere within ourselves. In the important decisions of personal life, we should be governed, I think, by the deep inner needs of our nature."
--Sigmund Freud

"There is always a multitude of reasons both in favor of doing a thing and against doing it. The art of debate lies in presenting them; the art of life lies in neglecting ninety-nine hundredths of them."
--Mark Rutherford

"You are the person who has to decide, whether you'll do it or toss it aside; You are the person who makes up your mind, whether you'll lead or will linger behind. Whether you'll try for the goal that's afar, or just be contented to stay where you are."
--Edgar A. Guest

"No task is a long one but the task on which one dare not start. It becomes a nightmare."
--Baudeliare

"We know what happens to people who stay in the middle of the road. They get run over."
--Anuerin Bevan

"When you cannot make up your mind which of two evenly balanced courses of action you should take choose the bolder."
--William Joseph Slim (1891-1970), British Field Marshall

"Decisions determine destiny."
--Frederick Speakman

"People begin to become successful the minute they decide to be."
--Harvey Mackay

"No trumpets sound when the important decisions of our life are made. Destiny is made known silently."
--Agnes de Mille

"It doesn't matter which side of the fence you get off of sometimes. What matters most is getting off! You cannot make progress without making decisions."
--Jim Rohn

"It's in your moments of decision that your destiny is shaped."
--Anthony Robbins

Dedication
"The road to happiness lies in two simple principles: find what interests you and that you can do well, and put your whole soul into it -- every bit of energy and ambition and natural ability you have."
--John D. Rockefeller, III

Defeat
"We are not interested in the possibilities of defeat."
--Queen Victoria

Democracy
"Inflation is bringing us true democracy. For the first time in history, luxuries and necessities are selling at the same price."
--Robert Orben

"As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy."
--Abraham Lincon

"Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the Earth."
--Abraham Lincon

"Baseball serves as a good model for democracy in action: Every player is equally important and each has a chance to be a hero."
--Edward Abbey

"So long as we have enough people in this country willing to fight for their rights, we'll be called a democracy."
--Roger Baldwin

"On account of being a democracy and run by the people, we are the only nation in the world that has to keep a government four years, no matter what it does."
--Will Rogers

Denial
"What you deny to others will be denied to you, for the plain reason that you are always legislating for yourself; all your words and actions define the world you live in."
--Thaddeus Golas

"A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep."
--Saul Bellow

"Never, for the sake of peace and quiet, deny your own experience or convictions."
--Dag Hammarskjold

Desire
"You can have anything you want if you want it desperately enough. You must want it with an inner exuberance that erupts through the skin and joins the energy that created the world."
--Sheila Graham

"One must not lose desires. They are mighty stimulants to creativeness, to love, and to long life."
--Alexander Bogomoletz

"Do not spoil what you have by desiring which you have not; but remember that what you have now was once among the things you only hoped for."
--Epicurus

Destiny
"Every man has his own destiny: the only imperative is to follow it, to accept it, no matter where it leads him."
--Henry Miller, The Wisdom of the Heart

"And when man faces destiny, destiny ends and man comes into his own."
--Andre Malraux, The Voices of Silence

"Destiny is not a matter of chance, it is a matter of choice; it is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved."
--William Jennings Bryan

"We write our own destiny. We become what we do."
--Madame Chiang Kai-Shek

"No love, no friendship can cross the path of our destiny without leaving some mark on it forever."
--Francois Mauriac

"No trumpets sound when the important decisions of our life are made. Destiny is made known silently."
--Agnes de Mille

"It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves."
--William Shakespeare

"Lots of folks confuse bad management with destiny."
--Kim Hubbard

"You are what your deep, driving desire is.
As your desire is, so is your will.
As your will is, so is your deed.
As your deed is, so is your destiny."
--Brihadaranyaka Upanishad IV.4.5

"It is a mistake to look too far ahead. Only one link in the chain of destiny can be handled at a time."
--Winston Churchill

Details
"Never neglect details. When everyone's mind is dulled or distracted the leader must be doubly vigilant."
--Colin Powell, U.S. Secretary of State, Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff

Determination
"The difference between the impossible and the possible lies in a person's determination."
--Tommy Lasorda

Development
"It marks a big step in a man's development when he comes to realize that other men can be called on to help him do a better job than he can do alone."
--Andrew Carnagie

"You are only young once, but you can stay immature indefinitely."
--Ogden Nash

Difficulty
"There are always difficulties arising that tempt you to believe your critics are right.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

"All difficult things have their origin in that which is easy, and great things in that which is small."
--Lao-Tzu

"Difficulties strengthen the mind, as labor does the body."
--Seneca

"It is simple to be happy but difficult to be simple.
--Habib

Direction
"The man who starts out going nowhere, generally gets there."
--Dale Carnegie

"You can't get where you're going while you're living where you've been."
--Dalton Roberts

"The great thing in this world is not so much where we are, but in what direction we are moving."
--Oliver Wendell Holmes

Disappointment
"The most valuable knowledge we can have is to how to deal with disappointments."
--Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965)

Discernment
"You need to know when to hold them and know when to fold them."
--Kenny Rodgers, from the song "The Gambler"

Discipline
"Discipline (should be) an expression of oneself from the outside and expression of one's own will, that is pleasant, that one slowly accustoms oneself to a kind of behavior which one would eventually miss, if one stopped practicing it."
--Erich Fromm (1900-1980)

"Discipline is based on pride, on meticulous attention to details, and on mutual respect and confidence. Discipline must be a habit so ingrained that it is stronger than the excitement of the goal or the fear of failure."
--Gary Ryan Blair, "The Goals Guy"

"The truth of the matter is that you always know the right thing to do. The hard part is doing it."
--General H. Norman Schwarzkopf

Discouragement
"To remain discouraged is not the way of a human being, we are not birds and animals, so it is not enough for us to simply lament and complain but we should use our intelligence and work hard."
-–The Dalai Lama

Discovery
"Discovery consists of looking at the same thing as everyone else and thinking something different."
--Albert Szent-Gyorgyi

"The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes."
--Marcel Proust

"The suburbs were discovered, quite by accident, one day in the early 1940s by a Welcome Wagon lady who was lost."
--Erma Bombeck

Discrimination
"We don't necessarily discriminate. We simply exclude certain types of people."
--Colonel Gerald Wellman, ROTC Instructor

Discussion
"Discussion is an exchange of knowledge; argument an exchange of ignorance."
--Robert Quillen

Dogs
"Life is like a dog-sled team. If you ain't the lead dog, the scenery never changes."
--Lewis Grizzard

"There are times when even the best manager is like the little boy with the big dog waiting to see where the dog wants to go so he can take him there."
--Lee Iacocca

"A barking dog is often more useful than a sleeping lion."
--Washington Irving

"For a good life: Work like a dog. Eat like a horse. Think like a fox. And play like a rabbit."
--George Allen

"If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man."
--Mark Twain

Doing
"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 the 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 course; who at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who, at 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 or defeat."
--Theodore Roosevelt

"Whatever we learn to do, we learn by actually doing it: men come to be builders, for instance, by building, and harp players by playing the harp. In the same way, by doing just acts, we come to be just; by doing self-controlled acts, we come to be self-controlled; and by doing brave acts, we become brave."
--Aristotle

"To do is to be."
--Socrates

"Don't let what you are doing get in the way of who you truly are."
--James A. Ray

"Everyone complains about the weather, but no one does a thing about it."
--Mark Twain

"What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say"
--Ralph Waldo Emerson

"When I do good, I feel good. When I do bad, I feel bad. And that's my religion."
--Abraham Lincoln

"Do what you can, with what you have, where you are."
--Theodore Roosevelt

"What you have to do and the way you have to do it is incredibly simple. Whether you are willing to do it, that's another matter."
--Peter Drucker

"Out of the strain of the Doing, into the peace of the Done."
--Julia Louise Woodruff

"Whenever you do a thing, act as if all the world were watching."
--Thomas Jefferson

"The person who says it cannot be done should not interrupt the person doing it."
--Chinese proverb

"Life's most persistent and urgent question is 'What are you doing for others?'"
--Martin Luther King, Jr.

"You can't build a reputation on what you're going to do."
--Henry Ford

"We write our own destiny. We become what we do."
--Madame Chiang Kai-Shek

"Do or do not. There is no try."
--Yoda, The Empire Strikes Back

"I am only one, but still I am one; I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; and because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do the something that I can do."
--Edward E. Hale

"We never do anything well till we cease to think about the manner of doing it."
--William Hazlitt

"In any moment of decision the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing."

--Theodore Roosevelt

"Five frogs are sitting on a log. Four decide to jump off. How many are left?
Answer: five
Why?
Because there's a difference between deciding and doing."
--Mark L. Feldman & Michael F. Spratt in 'Five Frogs on a Log'

"Do your best every day and your life will gradually expand into satisfying fullness."
--Horotio W. Dresser

"All men are alike in their dreams, and all men are alike in the promises they make. The difference is what they do."
--Moliere, 15th Century French Playwright

"The greatest reward for doing is the opportunity to do more."
--Jonas Salk (1914-1995), virologist

"Act so as to elicit the best in others and thereby in thyself."
--Felix Adler

"At the Day of Judgment, we shall not be asked what we have read, but what we have done."
--Thomas a Kempis

"What one has to do usually can be done."
--Eleanor Roosevelt

"If we do what is necessary all the odds are in our favor."
--Henry Kissinger

"If we do what is necessary all the odds are in our favor."
--Henry Kissinger

"Boast not of what thou would'st have done, but do."
--John Milton

Doubt
"Doubt, of whatever kind, can be ended by action alone."
--Thomas Carlyle, Scottish Philosopher 1795-1881

"Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt."
--William Shakespeare

"A man's doubts and fears are his worst enemies."
--William Wrigley, Jr.

"Doubt who you will, but never yourself."
--Christian Bovee

"Doubt, of whatever kind, can be ended by action alone."
--Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881), Scottish Philosopher

"Faith and doubt both are needed, not as antagonists, but working side by side to take us around the unknown curve."
--Lillian Smith

Dream
"All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity; but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes, to make it possible."
--T. E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia)

"All successful men and women are big dreamers. They imagine what their future could be, ideal in every respect, and then they work every day toward their distant vision, that goal or purpose."
--Brian Tracy

"Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night."
--Alexander Pope (1688 - 1744), British poet

"Nothing happens unless first a dream."
--Carl Sandburg

"Trust in dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity."
--Kahlil Gibran

"When we can't dream any longer, we die."
--Emma Goldman (b. June 27, 1869)

"A dream doesn't become reality through magic; it takes sweat, determination and hard work."
--Colin Powell, U.S. Secretary of State, Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff

"Dreams come true when you tell them to."
--Walt Disney

"Get excited and enthusiastic about your own dream. This excitement is like a forest fire -- you can smell it, taste it, and see it from a mile away."
--Denis Waitley

"If a little dreaming is dangerous, the cure for it is not to dream less but to dream more, to dream all the time."
--Marcel Proust (b. July 10, 1871)

"Dream lofty dreams, and as you dream, so shall you become."
--James Allen

"I have heard it said that the first ingredient of success -- the earliest spark in the dreaming youth -- is this; dream a great dream."
--John A. Appleman

"Cherish your visions and your dreams as they are the children of your soul; the blue prints of your ultimate accomplishments."
--Napoleon Hill

"Your vision will become clear only when you look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams, who looks inside, awakes."
--Carl Gustav Jung

"A man is not old until regrets take the place of dreams."
--John Barrymore

"You've got to create a dream. You've got to uphold the dream. If you can't, go back to the factory or go back to the desk."
--Eric Burdon

"When you reach for the stars, you may not quite get one, but you won't come up with a handful of mud either."
--Leo Burnett

"To dream anything that you want to dream, that is the beauty of the human mind. To do anything that you want to do, that is the strength of the human will. To trust yourself, to test your limits, that is the courage to succeed."
--Bernard Edmonds

"There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why... I dream of things that never were, and ask 'Why not?'"
--Robert Francis Kennedy

"The best way to make your dreams come true is to wake up."
--Paul Valery, French poet

"I have had dreams and I have had nightmares, but I have conquered my nightmares because of my dreams."
--Dr. Jonas Salk

"It may be that those who do most, dream most."
--Stephen Leacock

"I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave-owners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood."
--Martin Luther King, Jr. August 28, 1963 "I Have A Dream"

"Dreams never hurt anybody if he keeps working right behind the dreams to make as much of them become real as he can."
--Frank W. Woolworth

"God's gifts put man's best dreams to shame."
--Elizabeth Barrett Browning

"I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."
--Martin Luther King, Jr. August 28, 1963 "I Have A Dream"

"The person who would like to make his dreams come true must stay awake."
--Richard Wheeler

"We grow great by dreams. All big men are dreamers. They see things in the soft haze of a spring day or in the red fire of a long winter's evening. Some of us let these great dreams die, but others nourish and protect them."
--Woodrow Wilson

Duty
"If a sense of duty tortures a man, it also enables him to achieve prodigies."
--H. L. Mencken

"I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish small tasks as if they were great and noble."
--Helen Keller