Thomas Nelson - Classic Wisdom for the Good Life

CLASSIC WISDOM
FOR THE
GOOD
LIFE Copyright 2006 by Bryan Curtis All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any otherexcept for brief quotations in printed reviews, without prior permission of the publisher. Published by Rutledge Hill Press, a Division of Thomas Nelson, Inc., P.O. Box 141000, Nashville, Tennessee 37214. Rutledge Hill Press books may be purchased in bulk for educational, business, fundraising, or sales promotional use. For information, please e-mail SpecialMarkets@ThomasNelson.com.

Design by Stacy Clark Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Classic wisdom for the good life / edited by Bryan Curtis.
p. cm.
ISBN 1-4016-0303-3 (hard cover)
ISBN 1-4016-0305-X (leather)
1. Conduct of lifeQuotations, maxims, etc. I.
Curtis, Bryan.
PN6084.C556C46 2006
170'.44dc22 2006007882 Printed in the United States of America
06 07 08 09 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 To Paige Contents I t is what we all want for ourselves and those we love. But what exactly is the good life? For some the good life means having a powerful job and living in a house so big no human can clean it without a staff of help. For others it means a healthy family and enough money to help others.

But the good life does not encompass only one aspect of your life. A good life is a healthy mix of home and work and friends and fun. This book celebrates excellence and provides wisdom from many sources from many different times. It is my hope that some of these words help or inspire or motivate you to achieve a life you deserve and of which you can be proud. Many of the quotes in this book are specific about work or character or courage or achieving your dreams. But others are more subjective and can be applied to different aspects of your life.

What most of them accomplish is to remind you that your destiny and your happiness are in your own hands. So find one quote or 101 quotes that move you. Use them to make your life better. Use them to define and achieve the good life. CLASSIC WISDOM
FOR THE
GOOD
LIFE the
good
life There are only two options regarding commitment. Youre either in or out.

Theres no such thing as a life in-between. PAT RILEY
Real integrity is doing the right thing, knowing that nobodys going to know whether you did it or not. OPRAH WINFREY
The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing. WALT DISNEY You know, I used to think the future was solid or fixed, something you inherited like an old building that you move into when the previous generation moves out or gets chased out. But its not. The future is not fixed; its fluid.

You can build your own building, or hut or condo... the world is more malleable than you think and its waiting for you to hammer it into shape. BONO
The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day.

Never lose a holy curiosity. ALBERT EINSTEIN
College is something you complete. Life is something you experience. So dont worry about your grade, or the results or success. Success is defined in myriad ways, and you will find it, and people will no longer be grading you, but it will come from your own internal sense of decency. JON STEWART
Waste your money and youre only out of money, but waste your time and youve lost a part of your life.

MICHAEL LEBOEUF
Labor disgraces no man, but occasionally men disgrace labor. ULYSSES S. GRANT
Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken, winged bird that cannot fly. LANGSTON HUGHES
You will, undoubtedly, meet people who will try to shut you up or entice you to compromise your principles in any number of ways. Theyll try to seduce you and distract you with money, power, security and perhaps, most dangerously, a sense of belonging. SAMUEL L. SAMUEL L.

JACKSON
An invincible determination can accomplish almost anything, and in this lies the great distinction between great men and little men. THOMAS FULLER Ask yourself: Have you been kind today? Make kindness your daily modus operandi and change your world. ANNIE LENNOX
I have yet to find the man, however exalted his station, who did not do better work and put forth greater effort under a spirit of approval than under a spirit of criticism. CHARLES SCHWAB
When the heart is right, the mind and the body will follow. CORETTA SCOTT KING
When you give yourself the gift of quietly believing in yourself, youll love yourself. And now for another tip.

It is of paramount importance for you to figure out as soon as possible that you must do things that make you love yourself. Im sure youve all heard the line, If you dont first love yourself, you can never truly love anyone else. Well, thats true. No one in the world can solve the problems of one who does not love herself, and you can spend years thinking that if someone could just love me the right way, then everything will be okay. And thats true, its just that that someone is you. Because I know so well how easy it is to be hard on yourself, too hard, and how unforgiving one can be when it comes to ones own shortcomings.

And of course, some healthy self-criticism is good, but I also know how negative voices inside you can get carried away, until thats all you hear. CALLIE KHOURI When one door closes another door opens; but we so often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door, that we do not see the ones which open for us. ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL The man who has no imagination has no wings. MUHAMMAD ALI
Its not what you look at that matters, its what you see. HENRY DAVID THOREAU
A man may die, nations may rise and fall, but an idea lives on. JOHN F.

KENNEDY
Its easy to make a buck. Its a lot tougher to make a difference. TOM BROKAW
Draw strength from the knowledge that education will break the backs of poverty, disenfranchisement, and violence; that war is never inevitable but only a terrible failure of the imagination; and that love is stronger than hatred. WALLY LAMB Never confuse a single defeat with a final defeat. F. SCOTT FITZGERALD
To be successful, this education must foster the habit of critical thinking, rooting out the inconsistencies of self-serving ethical thought; this suggests a key role for religious and secular philosophy.

And it must also nourish the imagination; this suggests a key role for the arts. Third, it must offer much more knowledge of the world: the major world religions, economic conditions in developing countries, the deprivations with which a large proportion of the worlds people live from day to day. MARTHA C. NUSSBAUM
Achievement of your happiness is the only moral purpose of your life, and that happiness, not pain or mindless self-indulgence, is the proof of your moral integrity, since it is the proof and the result of your loyalty to the achievement of your values. AYN RAND
A winner is someone who recognizes his God-given talents, works his tail off to develop them into skills, and uses these skills to accomplish his goals. LARRY BIRD
I submit to you that if a man hasnt discovered something that he will die for, he isnt fit to live.

MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.
I To finish first, you must first finish. RICK MEARS
Even if you are on the right track, you will get run over if you just sit there. WILL ROGERS We plant seeds that will flower as results in our lives, so best to remove the weeds of anger, avarice, envy and doubt, that peace and abundance may manifest for all. DOROTHY DAY