Echoes

Arise, begin this very moment, and say, “Now is the time to do: now is the time to fight, now is the proper time for amendment.”

Do you have the patience to wait till your mud settles and the water is clear? Can you remain unmoving till the right action arises by itself?

Do the duty which lies nearest thee, which thou knowest to be a duty! Thy second duty will already have become clearer.

Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb-nail.

Thou oughtest in every deed and thought so to order thyself, as if thou wert to die this day.

Life is too short to waste The critic bite or cynic bark, Quarrel, or reprimand; ’Twill soon be dark; Up! mind thine own aim, and God speed the mark!

Now the time is most precious. Now is the accepted time, now is the day of salvation.

What I urge is that you so learn to control the machinery as to live with 'day-tight compartments' as the most certain way to ensure safety on the voyage. Touch a button and hear, at every level of your life, the iron doors shutting out the dead yesterdays and the unborn to-morrows.

For if he who resolveth bravely oftentimes falleth short, how shall it be with him who resolveth rarely or feebly?

What dost thou fear? Strike, man, strike!

...why did we wait for any thing? — why not seize the pleasure at once? — How often is happiness destroyed by preparation, foolish preparation!

First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do.

Life is short, and Art long; the crisis fleeting; experience perilous, and decision difficult.

It is better by noble boldness to run the risk of being subject to half of the evils we anticipate than to remain in cowardly listlessness for fear of what might happen.

Feelings come and go like clouds in a windy sky. Conscious breathing is my anchor.

Even as we speak, envious time is running away from us. Seize the day, trusting as little as possible in tomorrow.

The man of virtue makes the difficulty to be overcome his first business, and success only a subsequent consideration.

You have power over your mind — not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.

Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of non-essentials.

Yes, you can--if you do everything as if it were the last thing you were doing in your life, and stop being aimless, stop letting your emotions override what your mind tells you, stop being hypocritical, self-centered, irritable.

Breath is the bridge which connects life to consciousness, which unites your body to your thoughts. Whenever your mind becomes scattered, use your breath as the means to take hold of your mind again.

All great events hang by a hair. The man of ability takes advantage of everything and neglects nothing that can give him a chance of success; whilst the less able man sometimes loses everything by neglecting a single one of those chances.

O God, give us the serenity to accept what cannot be changed, the courage to change what should be changed, and the wisdom to distinguish the one from the other.

Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.

Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure — these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.