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Quotations
to Inspire Midshipmen We sent our son some inspirational quotes during his plebe summer/year. We printed them, cut them out and put them in letters and packages. They are listed here for your use. They are in no order or category, so you’ll just have to browse. There are more than enough to last through Plebe Summer and even through those nasty Dark Ages and Finals Weeks. You don’t need to use all. Choose the ones that make sense for your son/daughter. We had a bowl full of them at his I-Day party. We gave attendees a paper and envelope. They wrote messages to encourage him during Plebe Summer and included one of these quotes as well as a picture they brought in the envelope. We mail them in batches so he received some of these letters every week. |
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Never give up, though the road may seem long. |
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Should you ever think of me, |
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As you aspire to inspire, you must perspire!" |
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Transfer your uncertainty to faith, |
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80% of what you do is attitude, 20% is skill. |
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A drive for success is motivational and inspirational. |
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There are three key attributes for success: |
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In the pursuit to better ourselves, |
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Yesterday you were raw, |
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Dream so BIG that you cannot achieve it; |
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Success is neither a long jump nor a high jump; |
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You may fail twenty times, |
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“Finish each day and be done with it. |
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"The history of the world is the history |
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What matters in this life is more than winning for ourselves; |
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The direction in which we are going |
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It takes strength to be courageous |
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Success is within you. |
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"I can accept failure, but, I can't accept not trying." |
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No matter what the outcome is, |
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Everyone fails, everyone succeeds, |
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Everyone fails. It is our actions after our failures, |
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When you invest in somebody else's success, |
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“ Excellence is not an event, it is a habit. |
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Sometimes you just have to jump |
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It is extremely hard to be effective in any facets of one's life
while under the constraints of constant fear. Curiously, most of the things
we fear become larger and more pronounced the more we focus on them.
Conversely, when we refuse to allow that thing or those things we fear to
rule our thoughts, the fears began to work for us rather than against us.
It's a mind game and we WILL win over any fear or fears we have! |
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Today I will do the things other people don't want to do, |
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"Learn to get in touch with the silence within yourself and know
that everything in this life has a purpose. There are no mistakes, no
coincidences, and all events are blessings given to us to learn from." |
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"I am a slow walker...but I never walk backwards." |
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Hope doesn't guarantee anything, hard work does. |
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My interest is in the future, because I am going to spend the rest of
my life there. |
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Excellence is giving more than you know you have. |
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Lord, help me be the person |
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"What God intended for you |
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"Trust in the Lord with all your heart, |
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Don't count the days; |
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Whatever the challenge, |
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"He knows the way that I take; |
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Beautiful Savior, |
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Alone we can do so little, together we can do so much. |
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“Lord, Grant that I may always desire |
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“May the road rise to meet you |
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“Don't be afraid, for I am with you. |
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“Wheresoever you go, go with all your
heart." |
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“Wherever life may take you |
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“It is not easy to live life sometimes |
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If you can just hold on long enough to see this through, |
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Courage is doing what you are afraid to do. |
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Fear is nothing except a drain of energy and |
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As long as you are faced in the right direction, |
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What you are is God's gift to you. |
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Stay strong, God made you special |
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“No try not, |
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“Success is sweet |
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None of us is as strong as all of us. |
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Never give up! |
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Success is getting up just one time |
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There are no failures in life |
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Wherever you find a successful person, |
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The biggest difference between a success and a failure is |
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In track and field, it is thought that if you are |
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No one is 100% every day, |
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If you tell yourself you are a winner |
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The true test of courage is helping he who needs you, |
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The vision of a champion is someone who is |
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“I have failed over and over again -- that is why I succeed." |
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“The finest steel must endure the hottest fire." |
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“I've tried 99 times and I failed, |
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Success is more about attitude than aptitude. |
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Success is 10% mechanics and 90% attitude. |
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Your altitude is determined by your attitude |
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When you think you can do something, |
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Hard work beats talent, when talent doesn't work hard. |
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There was a very important job that
needed to be done |
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Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things
that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines.
Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails -
Explore, Dream. Discover. |
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And the day came when the risk it took |
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Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs,
even though checkered by failure...than to rank with those poor spirits who
neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that
knows not victory nor defeat. |
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Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far
one can go. |
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Take the first step in faith. |
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I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, |
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Obstacles are those frightful things you see |
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Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by
people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all. |
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“The journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.” |
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"If you hear a voice within you say ‘you cannot paint,’ |
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One hundred percent of the shots you don't take don't go in. |
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I find the great thing in this world is not so much where we stand, |
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"You must do the thing you think you cannot do.” |
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Finish every day and be done with it. |
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Use what talent you possess: |
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The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life.
Attitude to me is more important than facts. It is more important than the
past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than
success, than what other people think or say or do.
It is more important than appearance, gift, or skill. It will make or break a
company...a church...a home. The remarkable thing is we have a choice every
day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our
past...we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We
cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the string
we have, and that is our attitude. I am convinced that life is 10 percent
what happens to me and 90 percent how I react to it. And so it is with
you... we are in charge of our attitudes. |
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"Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. |
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One ship drives east and another drives west |
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“Whether you think you can |
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"Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent
will not; nothing in the world is more common than
unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is a
proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts.
Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent...” |
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“Each second we live is a new and unique moment of the universe, a
moment that will never be again. |
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Do you know what you are? |
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Lord, help me to understand that You ain't going to let nothing come my way |
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This is the beginning of a new day. |
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Every blade of grass has its angel that bends over it and whispers,
'Grow, grow.' |
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"When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope
that I would not have a single bit of talent left, and could say, 'I used
everything you gave me.'“ |
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God has a plan for this world of ours |
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What really matters is what you do with what you have. |
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My grandfather once told me that there were two kinds of people: |
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This above all: to thine own self be true, |
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Our imagination is the only limit |
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You can't leave foot prints in the sands of time |
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Happiness can be defined, in part at least, |
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Be patient with yourself. |
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Success, in my view, is the willingness |
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Quality is not an act. It is a habit. |
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Men who have attained things worth having in this world have worked
while others idled, have persevered while others gave up in despair, and have
practiced early in life the valuable habits of self-denial, industry, and
singleness of purpose. As a result, they enjoy in later life the success so
often erroneously attributed to good luck. |
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Every artist was first an amateur. |
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The reward of a thing well done is to have done it. |
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Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body. |
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We can do anything we want if we stick to it long enough. |
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What we hope ever to do with ease, we must learn first to do with
diligence. |
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Life affords no higher pleasure than that of surmounting
difficulties, passing from one step of success to another, |
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Education is not the piling on of learning, |
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One must learn by doing the thing, |
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The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet. |
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Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly
because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have those because we
have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an
act but a habit. |
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Never let formal education get in the way of your learning. |
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If I accept you as you are, I will make you worse; |
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Success is the result of perfection, hard work, |
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I have learned silence from the talkative, tolerance from the
intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strange, I am ungrateful to
those teachers. |
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Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, |
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There are few, if any, jobs in which
ability alone is sufficient.
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We can accomplish almost anything within our ability |
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I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat. |
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Continuous effort |
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This is no time for ease and comfort. |
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Success is having a flair for the thing that you are doing; |
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Just go out there and do what you've got to
do. |
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Even if you're on the right track, |
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It is a favorite belief of mine that no student |
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What factors are at play, for example, when people of high IQ
flounder and those of modest IQ do surprisingly well? I would argue that the
difference quite often lies in the abilities called here emotional
intelligence, which include self-control, zeal and persistence, and the
ability to motivate oneself. |
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The three great essentials to achieve anything worth while are, |
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The individual activity of one man with backbone |
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You've got to take initiative and play your game... |
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A threefold cord is not easily broken. |
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There is no Fate that plans men's lives. |
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Values are important. |
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If I could send something with the incoming Plebes, |
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There are many things that will happen to new Plebes |
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Many new Plebes were key leaders |
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The goal is to become a Naval Officer. |
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Friendship & Fellowship will get one through |
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The enlisted men and women of the Navy |
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What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters, |
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A word of encouragement during a failure |
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Trust in yourself. |
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With courage, you will dare to take risks, |
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I was taught that the way of progress is neither swift nor easy. |
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You must do the thing you think you cannot do. |
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Remember no one can make you feel inferior |
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The person who removes a mountain |
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Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, |
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Every oak tree started out with a nut who
stood its ground. |
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You haven't failed till you quit trying. |
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Security is mostly a superstition. |
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A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for. |
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Anyone can hold the helm when the sea is calm. |
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"When we long for life without difficulties, |
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“Have courage for the great sorrows of life |
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Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by
people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all. |
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The problem is not that there are problems. |
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The truth of the matter is that |
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You can complain because roses have thorns - |
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If you train hard, you'll not only be hard but you'll be hard to
beat. |
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Some people come into our lives and quickly go. |
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Wheresoever you go, go with all your heart. |
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Imagination is intelligence having fun. |
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The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be ignited. |
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Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! |
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Energy creates energy. |
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Your aspirations are your possibilities. |
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The best is yet to be. |
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Always dream and shoot higher than you know how to. |
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We've removed the ceiling above our dreams. |
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You are a child of the Universe, |
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I don't know what your destiny will be, but one thing I do know: |
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The purpose of life is to live a life of purpose |
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Seeing yourself as you want to be is the key to personal growth |
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If I have seen farther than others, |
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Dost thou love life? |
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Success is never final. |
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By three methods we may learn wisdom: |
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What we obtain too cheap we esteem too little; |
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You only live once- but if you work it
right, once is enough. |
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It is better to deserve an honor and not receive it, |
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They Can’t EAT You! |
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“Anyone who may be asked in this century |