The art of being yourself at your best
is the art of unfolding your personality
into the person you want to be…
Be gentle with yourself,
learn to love yourself,
to forgive yourself,
for only as we have the right attitude
toward ourselves can we have
the right attitude toward others.
To be what we are,
and to become what
we are capable of becoming
is the only end of life.
If you can’t be a highway, just be a trail.
If you can’t be the sun, be a star.
It isn’t by size that you win or you fail,
it’s by being the best of whatever you are.
Be more concerned with your character
than with your reputation.
Your character is what you really are
while your reputation is merely
what others think you are.
One who walks in another’s tracks
leaves no footprints.
There is only one success…
to be able to spend your life
in your own way.
Be who you are and say what you feel,
because those who mind don’t matter
and those who matter don’t mind.
When wealth is lost,
nothing is lost;
when health is lost,
something is lost;
when character is lost,
all is lost.
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light not our darkness that frightens us.
We ask ourselves ‘who am I to be brilliant,
gorgeous, talented and fabulous?’
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small doesn’t serve the world.
There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking
so that other people won’t feel insecure around you.
We were born to make manifest
the glory of God that is within us.
It’s not just in some of us; its in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine,
we unconsciously give other people
permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear,
our presence automatically liberates others.
Do you want to be a power in the world?
Then be yourself.
This above all:
to thine own self be true,
and it must follow,
as the night the day,
thou canst not then
be false to any man.
The one whose judgment counts most in your life
is the one staring back in the glass.
We are what we pretend to be,
so we must be careful
about what we pretend to be.
The ultimate measure of a man
is not where he stands in moments
of comfort and convenience,
but where he stands
at times of challenge and controversy.
A wonderful realization will be the day you realize
that you are unique in all the world.
There is nothing that is an accident.
You are a special combination for a purpose,
and don’t let them tell you otherwise,
even if they tell you that purpose is an illusion.
(Live an illusion if you have to).
You are that combination so that you can do
what is essential for you to do.
Don’t ever believe that you have nothing to contribute.
The world is an incredible unfulfilled tapestry.
And only you can fulfill that tiny space that is yours.
No man is free
who is not master of himself.
The moment you accept yourself as you are,
all burdens, all mountainous burdens,
simply disappear.
If you don’t control your mind,
someone else will.
We do not believe in ourselves until
someone reveals that deep inside us
which is valuable, worth listening to,
worthy of our trust, sacred to our touch.
Once we believe in ourselves we can risk curiosity,
wonder, spontaneous delight or any experience
that reveals the human experience.
You are what you think about all day long.
Often people attempt to live their lives backwards;
they try to have more things, or more money,
in order to do more of what they want,
so they will be happier.
The way it actually works is the reverse.
You must first be who you really are,
then do what you need to do,
in order to have what you want.
Never be afraid to tread the path alone.
Know which is your path and follow it
wherever it may lead you;
do not feel you have to follow
in someone else’s footsteps.
If you obey all the rules,
you miss all the fun.
The reasonable man
adapts himself to the world;
the unreasonable one persists
in trying to adapt the world to himself.
Therefore all progress depends
on the unreasonable man.
Nothing splendid has ever been achieved
except by those who dared believe
that something inside them
was superior to circumstance.
When a man stops
trying to prove he is a man,
he is a man.
It is important from time to time to slow down,
to go away by yourself, and simply Be.
Do not go where the path may lead,
go instead where there is no path
and leave a trail.
You must begin to trust yourself.
If you do not then you will forever be looking
to others to prove your own merit to you,
and you will never be satisfied.
Your vision will become clear
only when you look into your heart.
Who looks outside, dreams.
Who looks inside, awakens.
Always be a first-rate version
of yourself,
instead of a second-rate version
of somebody else.
No one can make you feel inferior
without your permission.
Not only are you what you think you are:
more so, what you think, you are.