1. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and if they can’t find them, make them.
~George Bernard Shaw, Mrs. Warren’s Profession, 1893
2. I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavor.
~Henry David Thoreau, Walden, 1854
3. When written in Chinese, the word crisis is composed of two characters. One represents danger and the other represnets opportunity.
~John F. Kennedy, speech, April 12, 1959
4. The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds; and the pessimist fears this is true.
~James Branch Cabell, The Silver Stallion, 1926
5. Wisdom consists of the anticipation of consequences.
~Norman Cousins, Saturday Review, April 15, 1978
6. Very few people are ambitious in the sense of having a specific image of what they want to achieve. Most people’s sights are only toward the next run, the next increment of money.
~Judith Bardwick, The Plateauing Trap, 1988
7. Change is inevitable in a progressive society. Change is constant.
~Benjamin Disraeli, speech, October 20, 1967
8. A wise man turns chance into good fortune.
~Thomas Fuller, Gnomologia, 1732
9. Decision making isn’t a matter of arriving at a right or wrong answer; it’s a matter of selecting the most effective course of action from among less effective courses of action.
~Philip Marvini, Developing Decisions for Action, 1971
10. Happiness, wealth, and success are byproducts of goal setting; they cannot be the goals themselves.
~Denis Waitley and Remi L. Witt, The Joy of Working, 1985