Light Candles

Light Candles

August 06, 2009

In reference to the late Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of our 32nd President Mr. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Adlai Stevenson mused, "She would rather light candles than curse the darkness, and her glow has warmed the world." How many of you have cursed the darkness at least 10 times before you rise from your peaceful slumber each morning? Before you kick off the sheets and step into the light of a new day?

The "darkness" could refer to many things: a failed relationship, turning off your alarm and getting up late for work, not meeting your sales quota last week etc. I once heard it said that some days the only victory you have wrought is the ability to stand on your own two feet. My friends it is a victory nonetheless! We must learn how to redefine our successes and step boldly into the face of opposition! For that is where we will find our success.

I learned a new word yesterday... temerity. I liked it the moment it hit my ears. Temerity refers to a conspicuous or flagrant boldness... as in, "He had the temerity to tell his CEO exactly what he thought of him." If you've seen the movie 300 you know the Spartans were imbued with temerity. According to Merriam Webster Online it is more specifically described as an "unreasonable or foolhardy contempt of danger or opposition." Well, sometimes you've got to get in there and mix things up to make things happen.

I think back to the first time I read Invictus by William Ernest Henley... I felt empowered, fully and eagerly willing to shirk off the darkness and laugh in the face of adversity for "Under the bludgeonings of chance, My head [was] bloody, but unbowed" and "...the menace of the years, [Found] and [still finds] me unafraid." Would you rather live with the pain of discipline or the pain of regret? Here's something else to ponder... either you discipline yourself or the world will gladly step up and take on that role.

Stop saying how "difficult" the attainment of success is. It is nothing more than opportunity disguised in a black cloak. Once you make that realization the light will break through and the gems of opportunity will be yours for the taking. Light candles my friends! And do not curse the darkness... for what follows the darkest of nights? Why, the brightest of days of course!

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Inspirational Quotes

Ambition is the path to success, persistence is the vehicle you arrive in. - Bill Bradley
Patience, persistence and perspiration make an unbeatable combination for success. - Napoleon Hill
We are made to persist. That's how we find out who we are. - Tobias Wolff
Knowing trees, I understand the meaning of patience. Knowing grass, I can appreciate persistence. - Hal Borland
If you can't be the rock, be the ripple. - Regina Brett
After one discovers what he is made for, he should surrender all of the power in his being to the achievement of it. - Unknown
We are all angels with only one wing; we can only fly while embracing one another. - Author de Crescanzzo
Tell me and I'll forget; show me and I may remember; involve me and I'll understand. - Chinese Proverb
Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I'll meet you there. - Rumi
The person who forgets the ultimate is a slave to the immediate. - John Maxwell
We're going to chase the hell out of perfection, and hopefully we'll catch some excellence along the way. - Vince Lombardi
Leaders make decisions that create the future they desire. - Mike Murdock
Earn your success based on service to others, not at the expense of others. - H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
We will either find a way or make one. - Hannibal
Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone. - Picasso
Nothing limits achievement like small thinking. Nothing equals possibilities like unleashed thinking. - William Arthur Ward
It's hard to beat a person who never gives up. - Babe Ruth
The will to win is worthless if you do not have the will to prepare. - Thane Yost
I dream of men who take the next step instead of worrying about the next thousand steps. - Theodore Roosevelt
When you do what you love the universe conspires on your behalf. - Oscar Wilde
Man is born to live, not to prepare for life. - Boris Pasternak
I have found that if you love life, life will love you back. - Arthur Rubinstein
I am always amazed that when I go as far as I can possibly see, I can then see further. - Michael Bloxton
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
Winner are losers who got up and gave it one more try. - Dennis DeYoung
Don't be afraid to give up the good to go for the great. - Kenny Rogers
I dream, therefore I become. - Cheryl Renee Grossman
Drop the idea of becoming someone, because you are already a masterpiece. You cannot be improved. You have only to know it and realize it. - Osho
It is through creating, not possessing, that life is revealed. - Vida D. Scudder
Eliminate the time between the idea and the act. - Dr. Edward Kramer
The essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for. - Joseph Addison
"Thou shalt not" is soon forgotten, but "Once upon a time" lasts forever. - Philip Pullman
If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader. - John Quincy Adams
Men spend their lives in anticipations—in determining to be vastly happy at some period when they have time. But the present time has one advantage over every other—it is our own. Past opportunities are gone, future have not come. We may lay in a stock of pleasures, as we would lay in a stock of wine; but if we defer the tasting of them too long, we shall find that both are soured by age. - Charles Caleb Colton
Happiness does not consist in pastimes and amusements but in virtuous activities. - Aristotle
When one door of happiness closes, another opens, but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one that has been opened for us. - Helen Keller
Empty pockets never held anyone back. Only empty heads and empty hearts can do that. - Norman Vincent Peale
In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer. - Albert Camus
When the world pushes you to your knees, you are in a perfect position to pray. - Anonymous
No bird soars too high if he soars with his own wings. - William Blake
You can conquer almost any fear if you will only make up your mind to do so. For remember, fear doesn't exist anywhere except in the mind. - Dale Carnegie
Happiness is where we find it, but rarely where we seek it. - J. Petit Senn
Action may not always bring happiness; but there is no happiness without action. - Benjamin Disraeli
There is only one way to happiness, and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power of our will. - Epictetus
The future depends on what we do in the present. - Mahatma Gandhi
Everything comes to him who hustles while he waits. - Thomas Edison
Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work. - Thomas Edison
I may be sitting in the corner but I'm standing up on the inside. - Unknown
Duty, then, is the sublimest word in the English language. You should do your duty in all things. You can never do more. You should never wish to do less. - Attributed to General Robert E. Lee
There is no limit to the good you can do if you don't care who gets the credit. - General of the Army George C. Marshall
You are always on parade. - General George S. Patton Jr.
A leader is a man who has the ability to get other people to do what they don't want to do, and like it. - President Harry S. Truman
Never tell people how to do things, tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity. - General George S. Patton Jr.
A good plan executed now is better than a perfect plan next week. - General George S. Patton Jr.
Things turn out best for the people who make the best of the way things turn out. - John Wooden
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
No one can make you feel inferior without your consent. - Eleanor Roosevelt
One's philosophy is not best expressed in words; it is expressed in the choices one makes. In the long run, we shape our lives and we shape ourselves. - Eleanor Roosevelt
Do what you feel in your heart to be right—for you'll be criticized anyway. - Eleanor Roosevelt
There is a science of getting rich, and it is an exact science, like algebra or arithmetic. There are certain laws which govern the process of acquiring riches, and once these laws are learned and obeyed by anyone, that person will get rich with mathematical certainty. - Wallace D. Wattles
The more tranquil a man becomes, the greater his success, his influence, and his power for good. His is like a shade-giving tree in a thirsty land, or a sheltering rock in a storm. - James Allen
The strongest oak of the forest is not the one that is protected from the storm and hidden from the sun. It's the one that stands in the open where it is compelled to struggle for existence against the winds and rains and the scorching sun. - Napleon Hill
If we did all the things we are capable of, we would literally astound ourselves. - Thomas Edison
It is not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves. - Sir Edmund Hillary
Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm. - Sir Winston Churchill
I've missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times, I've been trusted to take the game winning shot--and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed. - Michael Jordan
The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity. The fears are paper tigers. You can do anything you decide to do. You can act to change and control your life; and the procedure, the process is its own reward. - Amelia Earhart
Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through the experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved. - Helen Keller
Success is achieved and maintained by those who try and keep trying. - W. Clement Stone
A great attitude does much more than turn on the light in our worlds; it seems to magically connect us to all sorts of serendipitous opportunities that were somehow absent before we changed. - Earl Nightingale
Every life form seems to strive to its maximum except human beings. How tall will a tree grow? As tall as it possibly can. Human beings, on the other hand, have been given the dignity of choice. You can choose to be all or you can choose to be less. Why not stretch up to the full measure of the challenge and see what all you can do? - Jim Rohn
When a man has put a limit on what he will do, he has put a limit on what he can do. - Charles Schwab
If you can't, you must, and if you must, you can. - Anthony Robbins
Take the first step in faith. You don't have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step. - Martin Luther King, Jr.
Nature gives all, without reservation, and loses nothing; man or woman, grasping all, loses everything. - James Allen
I never perfected an invention that I did not think about in terms of the service it might give others... I find out what the world needs, then I proceed to invent. - Thomas Edison
Believe nothing. No matter where you read it, or who said it, even if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense. - Buddha
Come to the edge, He said. They said: We are afraid. Come to the edge, He said. They came. He pushed them, And they flew... - Guillaume Apollinaire
Authority is 20% given and 80% taken...so take it! - Peter Ueberroth
You've got to ask. Asking is, in my opinion, the world's most powerful and neglected secret to success and happiness. - Percy Ross
The best way out is always through. - Robert Frost
Work spares us from three evils: boredom, vice, and need. - Voltaire
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act but a habit. - Aristotle
A real decision is measured by the fact that you've taken a new action. If there's no action, you haven't truly decided. - Anthony Robbins
Our greatest glory is not in never falling but in rising everytime we fall. - Confucius
If you do not hope, you will not find what is beyond your hopes. - St. Clement of Alexandria