Quotes on Enthusiasm

Motivation
"Enthusiasm is excitement with inspiration, motivation, and a pinch of creativity."
- Bo Bennett

"Enthusiasm is the yeast that makes your hopes rise to the stars.
Enthusiasm is the sparkle in your eyes, the swing in your gait, the grip of your hand, the irresistible surge of will and energy to excite your ideas."
- Henry Tor

"Enthusiasm is one of the most powerful engines of success.
When you do a thing, do it with all your might.
Put your whole soul into it. Stamp it with your own personality.
Be active, be energetic and faithful, and you will accomplish your object. Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"The worst bankrupt is the man who has lost his enthusiasm.
Let a man lose everything in the world but his enthusiasm and he will come through again to success."
- H.W. Arnold

“We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all that we need to make us happy is something to be enthusiastic about.”
- Charles Kingsley

212 degrees - The Extra Degree

Are You Going to Finish Strong?

So what do you do if you fall down?

“Get back up, everybody knows to get back up, because if I stop walking, I'm not gonna get anywhere. But I tell you there are some times in life when you fall down you feel like you don't have the strength to get back up. Do you think you have hope?

Because I tell you I'm down here, face down, and I have no arms, no legs. It should be impossible for me to get back up. But it's not. You see, I will try 100 times to get up. And if I failed 100 times, if I fail and I give up, do you think that I'm ever gonna get up? No! But if I fail, I'll try again, and again, and again.

But I just want you to know that it's not the end. It matters how you're gonna finish. Are you gonna finish strong? And you will find that strength to get back up, like this...”

Ants' Philosophy - Never Quit

Ants Philosophy

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Hang in There

Hang in There
Don't quit when the tide is lowest,
for it's just about to turn;

Don't quit over doubts and questions,
for there's something you may learn;

Don't quit when the night is darkest,
for it's just a while till dawn;

Don't quit when you've run the farthest,
for the race is almost won;

Don't quit when the hill is steepest,
for your goal is almost nigh;

Don't quit, for you're not a failure
until you fail to try.

Don't Quit

Quotes on Perseverance

Perseverance
"Consider the postage stamp: its usefulness consists in the ability to stick to one thing till it gets there."
- Josh Billings

"It's not that I'm so smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer."
- Albert Einstein

"Most people give up just when they're about to achieve success. They quit on the one yard line. They give up at the last minute of the game, one foot from a winning touchdown."
- H. Ross Perot

"Success seems to be largely a matter of hanging on after others have let go."
- William Feather

"Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence.
Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent.
Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb.
Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts.
Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.
The slogan, 'press on' has solved, and always will solve, the problems of the human race."
- Calvin Coolidge

"Look at a stone cutter hammering away at his rock, perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred-and-first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not the last blow that did it, but all that had gone before."
- Jacob A. Riis

"I may not be there yet, but I'm closer than I was yesterday."
- Anonymous

Quotes on Learning

Knowledge
"That's what learning is, after all; not whether we lose the game,
but how we lose and how we've changed because of it and
what we take away from it that we never had before, to apply to other games.
Losing, in a curious way, is winning."
- Richard Bach

"If you accept failure as an opportunity to learn, it will change your whole perspective. Some people allow failures to stop them form ever attempting anything new. Rather than learn and move on, these people get stuck forever."
- Catherine Pulsifer

"I have always grown from my problems and challenges, from the things that don't work out, that's when I've really learned."
- Carol Burnett

"Learning is about more than simply acquiring new knowledge and insights; it is also crucial to unlearn old knowledge that has outlive its relevance. Thus, forgetting is probably at least as important as learning."
- Gary Ryan Blair

"The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn."
- Alvin Toffler

"Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at 20 or 80. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young."
- Henry Ford

"Learning is like rowing upstream: not to advance is to drop back."
- Chinese Proverb

Quotes on Failure

Try, Try Again!- American Proverb
"What we call failure is not the falling down, but the staying down."
- Mary Pickford

"Being defeated is often a temporary condition. Giving up is what makes it permanent."
- Marilyn vos Savant

"A failure establishes only this, that our determination to succeed was not strong enough."
- John Christian Bovee

"Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up."
- Thomas Edison

"Failure should be our teacher, not our undertaker.
Failure is delay, not defeat. It is a temporary detour, not a dead end.
Failure is something we can avoid only by saying nothing, doing nothing, and being nothing."
- Dr. Denis Waitley

"We pay a heavy price for our fear of failure.
It is a powerful obstacle to growth.
It assures the progressive narrowing of the personality and prevents exploration and experimentation.
There is no learning without some difficulty and fumbling.
If you want to keep on learning, you must keep on risking failure — all your life."
- John W. Gardner

"Remember the two benefits of failure.
First, if you do fail, you learn what doesn't work;
and second, the failure gives you the opportunity to try a new approach."
- Roger von Oech

"Most success springs from an obstacle or failure. I became a cartoonist largely because I failed in my goal of becoming a successful executive."
- Scott Adams

The Cracked Pot

Meadow Suite I
Count the garden by the flowers, never by the leaves that fall.
Count your life with smiles and not the tears that roll.

A water bearer in India had two large pots, each hung on each end of a pole which he carried across his neck. One of the pots had a crack in it while the other pot was perfect and always delivered a full portion of water at the end of the long walk from the stream to the master's house, the cracked pot arrived only half full.

For a full two years this went on daily, with the bearer delivering only one and a half pots full of water to his master's house. Of course, the perfect pot was proud of its accomplishments, perfect to the end for which it was made.

But the poor cracked pot was ashamed of its own imperfection, and miserable that it was able to accomplish only half of what it had been made to do. After two years of what it perceived to be a bitter failure, it spoke to the water bearer one day by the stream.

"I am ashamed of myself, and I want to apologize to you".

“Why?" asked the bearer. "What are you ashamed of?"

"I have been able, for these past two years, to deliver only half my load because this crack on my side which causes water to leak out all the way back to your master's house. Because of my flaws, you have to do all of this work, and you don't get full value from your efforts," the pot said.

The water bearer felt sorry for the old cracked pot, and in his compassion he said, "As we return to the master's house, I want you to notice the beautiful flowers along the path."

Indeed, as they went up the hill, the old cracked pot took notice of the sun warming the beautiful wild flowers on the side of the path, and this cheered it somehow. But at the end of the trail, it still felt bad because it had leaked out half its load, and so again it apologized to the bearer for its failure.

The bearer said to the pot, "Did you notice that there were flowers only on your side of the path, but not on the other pot's side? That's because I have always known about your flaw, and I took advantage of it. I planted flower seeds on your side of the path, and every day while we walk back from the stream, you've watered them. For two years I have been able to pick these beautiful flowers to decorate my master's table. Without you being just the way you are, he would not have this beauty to grace his house."


Moral of the Story:
Each of us has our own unique flaws - we are all cracked pots. But it is the cracks and flaws we each have that make our lives together so very interesting and rewarding. Tap on the cracks in those around you to make flowers. You've just got to take each person for what they are, and look for the good in them. There is a lot of good out there and there is a lot of good in all of us!

Quotes on Mistake

Mistakes - Esther Dyson
"The price of inaction is far greater than the cost of making a mistake."
- Meister Eckhart

"Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new."
- Albert Einstein

"People who make no mistakes lack boldness and the spirit of adventure. They are the brakes on the wheels of progress."
- Dale Turner

"While one person hesitates because he feels inferior, the other is busy making mistakes and becoming superior."
- Henry C. Link

"Mistakes fail in their mission of helping the person who blames them on the other fellow."
- Henry S. Haskins

"Some of the best lessons we ever learn are learned from past mistakes. The error of the past is the wisdom and success of the future."
- Dale Turner

"Mistakes are stepping stones to success."
- Charles E. Popplestone

"Success does not consist in never making mistakes but in never making the same one a second time."
- George Bernard Shaw

"We learn wisdom from failure much more than from success;
we often discover what will do, by finding out what will not do;
and probably he who never make a mistake never made a discovery."
- Samuel Smiles

"The only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing."
- John Powell

Remember where Happiness Begins...

All with a Smile =)

Let Us complain less and Give More

How often do we complain that life is unfair? How often do we feel unhappy and unsatisfied with what we have?

If we compare ourselves with the rich people and CEOs, I could "see" how unfair life is when they drive around in Porsche and Ferrari while we have to take the public transport. They buy branded bags like LV and Gucci, while we can only afford their imitations. They stay in bungalows and private properties while we live in public housings. They go golfing during office hours, while we continue to slog after office hours.

They are born with a silver spoon while we are told to work very hard. They seem to be successful in everything they do while we keep facing problems.

However if we compare our lives with the people in the video, I could only say "You just don't realise how fortunate you are. Be grateful and appreciate what you have."