It is, after all, not necessary to fly right into the middle of the sun, but it is necessary to crawl to a clean little spot on earth where the sun sometimes shines and one can warm oneself a little.

Recommended reading: Letter to my Father.

Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.

Recommended reading: Man’s Search for Meaning.

Human beings are the only creatures who are allowed to fail. If an ant fails, it’s dead. But we’re allowed to learn from our mistakes and from our failures. And that’s how I learn, by falling flat on my face and picking myself up and starting all over again. If I’m not free to fail, I will never start another book, I’ll never start a new thing.

Recommended reading: A Wrinkle in Time.

Your ability to use the principle of autosuggestion will depend, very largely, upon your capacity to concentrate upon a given desire until that desire becomes a burning obsession.

Recommended reading: Think and Grow Rich.

A person’s maturity consists in having found again the seriousness one had as a child, at play.

Recommended reading: Beyond Good and Evil.

Anxiety equals excitement plus inadequate supply of oxygen.

Recommended reading: Gestalt Therapy: Excitement and Growth in the Human Personality.

We are all inventors, each sailing out on a voyage of discovery, guided each by a private chart, of which there is no duplicate. The world is all gates, all opportunities.

Recommended reading: Emerson: Essays and Lectures.

It is always during a passing state of mind that we make lasting resolutions.

Recommended reading: Swann’s Way: In Search of Lost Time.

In the field of observation, chance favors only the prepared mind.

Recommended reading: Louis Pasteur: Founder of Modern Medicine.

 

Every day you may make progress. Every step may be fruitful. Yet there will stretch out before you an ever-lengthening, ever-ascending, ever-improving path. You know you will never get to the end of the journey. But this, so far from discouraging, only adds to the joy and glory of the climb.

Recommended reading: The Churchill Factor: How One Man Made History.