PERSONAL GROWTH

The way to gain a good reputation, is to endeavor to be what you desire to appear. - Socrates

The fact is, that to do anything in the world worth doing, we must not stand back shivering and thinking of the cold and danger, but jump in and scramble through as well as we can.
Robert Cushing

The searching-out and thorough investigation of truth ought to be the primary study of man.
Cicero

The only journey is the journey within.
Rainer Maria Rilke

Know thyself means this, that you get acquainted with what you know, and what you can do.
Menander

Yes, know thyself: in great concerns or small,
Be this thy care, for this, my friend, is all.
Juvenal

Men soon the faults of others learn
A few their virtues, too, find out;
But is there one—I have a doubt—
Who can his own defects discern?
Sanskrit Proverb

Collect as precious pearls the words of the wise and virtuous.
Abd-el-Kadar

If we do not plant knowledge when young, it will give us no shade when we are old.
Lord Chesterfield

If you have an hour, will you not improve that hour, instead of idling it away?
Lord Chesterfield

Follow your honest convictions, and stay strong.
William Thackeray

He that will not reflect is a ruined man.
Asian Proverb

Every day do something that will inch you closer to a better tomorrow.
Doug Firebaugh

God ever works with those who work with will.
Aeschylus

Insist on yourself. Never imitate.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Heaven never helps the man who will not act.
Sophocles

Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.
Aristotle

Our ideas, like orange-plants, spread out in proportion to the size of the box which imprisons the roots.
Edward Bulwer Lytton

In learning to know other things, and other minds, we become more intimately acquainted with ourselves, and are to ourselves better worth knowing.
Philip Gilbert Hamilton

What progress, you ask, have I made? I have begun to be a friend to myself.
Hecato, Greek philosopher

We are either progressing or retrograding all the while; there is no such thing as remaining stationary in this life.
James Freeman Clarke

To conquer oneself is the best and noblest victory; to be vanquished by one's own nature is the worst and most ignoble defeat.
Plato

Everybody wants to be somebody;
nobody wants to grow.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The happiest life is that which constantly exercises and educates what is best in us.
Hamerton

We only become what we are by the radical and deep-seated refusal of that which others have made of us.
Jean-Paul Sartre

Change and growth take place when a person has risked himself and dares to become involved with experimenting with his own life.
Herbert Otto

Heed the still small voice that so seldom leads us wrong, and never into folly.
Marquise du Deffand

Your real influence is measured by your treatment of yourself.
A. Bronson Alcott

Energy and persistence conquer all things.
Benjamin Franklin

If we all did the things we are capable of,
we would astound ourselves.
Thomas Edison

A man who finds no satisfaction in himself will seek for it in vain elsewhere.
La Rochefoucauld

Fear less, hope more, eat less, chew more, whine less, breathe more, talk less, say more, hate less, love more, and good things will be yours.
Swedish Proverb

Make it thy business to know thyself, which is the most difficult lesson in the world.
Miguel de Cervantes

The best rules to form a young man are: to talk little, to hear much, to reflect alone upon what has passed in company, to distrust one's own opinions, and value others that deserve it.
Sir William Temple

Exert your talents, and distinguish yourself, and don't think of retiring from the world, until the world will be sorry that you retire.
Samuel Johnson