What's your own personal motto

[IslandGirl_Becks]

Not surprisingly... Buck the Tide. 

 

I had a job in high school as a deckhand in the San Juan Islands. Just like life, sometimes the tide is with you, and you're rip-roaring along. When the tide is against you and you have your sights on your destination, you're in for a wild ride. It's fun and sometimes a little scary. It just reminds me that I don't have to "go with the flow," and that I can handle it. Eventually, the tide will change!

[Kaye2015]

I've got two that I have posted around my life (phone, fridge, desk, etc).

 

1. Dreams don't work unless you do.

2. Don't stop until you're proud.

[Nubbins McGee]

My personal mantra:  Suffering makes champions.

 

It's a very succinct paraphrase of a Muhammad Ali quote:  "I hated every minute of training, but I said, 'Don't quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.'"

[Rurik Harrgath]

I've always been drawn to any quote about "boldness."

"Fortune favors the bold."

"Who Dares, Wins."

"Freedom lies in being bold."

 

I think about one of the above whenever I'm nervous about something, and it usually gives me the pep it takes to at least start whatever it is I'm worried about.  The follow-through is mine though.

[Castiel]

My personal mantra:  Suffering makes champions.

 

It's a very succinct paraphrase of a Muhammad Ali quote:  "I hated every minute of training, but I said, 'Don't quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.'"

 

I have that quote and the picture of him standing over Liston as the lock-screen on my phone.

[VailedPhoenix]

I have so many!

 

"if it were easy, everyone would do it!" and "pain is weakness leaving the body" - picked both of those up freshman year of high school in njrotc.

 

"Let no man pull you down low enough to hate him" - I have to remind myself this daily.

 

"Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee" - favorite Ali quote ever.

 

"Be water" - taken from Bruce Lee's 'Water' quote, to remind myself to be ever changing and adapting, no matter the situation.

 

and finally "The sky is the limit. Your sky. Your limit. Now dance."

[Jammer]

"Work hard, rock hard, eat hard, sleep hard, grow big, and wear glasses if you need 'em!"

 

With apologies to Webb Wilder.

[Arkarian]

I have two that i would like too share. Both are about change and being in a constant state of improvement. The first is from my favorite poet ever Andrea Gibson.

 

“I am living today as someone I had not yet become yesterday

And tonight I'll only borrow pieces of who I am today
To carry with me to tomorrowâ€

 

and the second i cant remember where i picked this up i believe i overheard it somewhere.

 

"What defines you?

Nothing; A definition excludes the possibility for change."

[Surakha]

I'm big on this old classic:
 

"God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference."

We waste a ridiculous amount of time and energy being mad about limitations in our lives. If we can accept where we are now is what it is and work from within those limitations to live as best we can, well, that's where the road to happiness nad fulfillment is. 

[saroufall]

My personal favorites:

1. "You can't stop the waves, but you can learn how to surf."
2. "Civilize the mind but make savage the body."

[Juni0r83]

I have so many!

"if it were easy, everyone would do it!" and "pain is weakness leaving the body" - picked both of those up freshman year of high school in njrotc.

"Let no man pull you down low enough to hate him" - I have to remind myself this daily.

"Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee" - favorite Ali quote ever.

"Be water" - taken from Bruce Lee's 'Water' quote, to remind myself to be ever changing and adapting, no matter the situation.

and finally "The sky is the limit. Your sky. Your limit. Now dance."

My response to your last one for the past year or so has been:

Don't tell my the sky is the limit when there are footprints on the moon.

[Juni0r83]

Also:

"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." - George Bernard Shaw

[Rurik Harrgath]

 

A girlfriend once made a reference to my being her Knight in Shining Armor.

 

I said, "No, I'm no knight.  But I'll be your Viking in tattered chainmail."  And that has been part of my philosophy ever since.

[EVEArgent]

“HUMAN BEINGS MAKE LIFE SO INTERESTING. DO YOU KNOW, THAT IN A UNIVERSE SO FULL OF WONDERS, THEY HAVE MANAGED TO INVENT BOREDOM." - Death, The Hogfather - Terry Pratchett

Live life to not be bored. There is so much I want to, and can, do. Why waste time?

 

“Sometimes glass glitters more than diamonds because it has more to prove.†- Terry Pratchett

I might not be the best, but dammit, I'll try.

My life is a series of Terry Pratchett inspired movements.

 

[Mark D]

I have a few:

 

Since a proper motto ought to be in Latin:  Illegitimus non carborundum est.  Translation: don't let the bastards wear you down.

 

No gentleman would insult me, and no man not a gentleman can insult me (Frederick Douglass)

 

It's not the years, it's the miles (Indiana Jones)

 

Do.  Or do not.  There is no try.  (Yoda)

 

What we do in this life echos in Eternity (The Gladiator)

[aalex]

"I live for myself and I answer to nobody" (Steve McQueen)

"There is nothing to fear but fear itself" (Franklin D. Roosevelt)

"Have a mind that is open to everything and attached to nothing" (Wayne Dyer)

[Minty Keen]

I often tell people "If the weather is all we have to complain about, then our lives must be pretty darn good."
...working customer service. Small Talk. Ehhh.

[Evermist]

"Somedays you just have to create your own sunshine. " -Sam Sundquist

 

Not a beautiful quote, but I usually tell people "Today is always a good day. Tough, boring, exhausting, frustrating, but still a good day. If it isn't, tomorrow will be one."

[Companion]

Go

Do

See

Be

[sumdawgtwigg]

I'm a big Henry Rollins fan so mine is "It's hero time". Cheesy? Yes. Does it work? Yes. 

[Juni0r83]

I'm a big Henry Rollins fan so mine is "It's hero time". Cheesy? Yes. Does it work? Yes. 

Most fitness enthusiast who like Henry Rollins just quote 'the iron'. I appreciate your broader approach. 

[broddah]

Embrace the suck

[---]

My motto's just one word, but it holds a lot of weight for me.

 

It's a word that I connect with the last chapter in a wonderful book I read. In that chapter, the protagonists had just left a dying, corrupt world and entered the foothills of Paradise. They met a friend who urged them not to stay in those foothills, beautiful though they were. Instead, this friend encouraged them to run deeper in and farther upwards. As the protagonists ran apace with their friend, they discovered that the farther upwards and inwards they ran, the more beautiful, expansive, and the more real Paradise became. The friend's rallying cry was "Farther up and farther in!"

 

It's a word that describes my determination to always be improving myself. To dispel my own complacency. To reject the lie that I don't need change. To turn my back on the pressure to be ok with myself as-is, and to always find ways to be kinder, healthier, better-educated, and smarter. Always pushing forward. Never standing still, or moving backwards. If I'm forced backwards, then dusting myself off and moving forward again.

 

It's a word I use because "Excelsior" was taken. (Dangit, Stan Lee.)

My motto is simply this: Onward.

[Mark D]

When people first meet me, they think I'm a grouchy, cantankerous, anti-social old bastard.  Once they get to know me, they realize they were mistaken.  My parents were married.

[Mark D]

And since I used these in my challenge thread, I had to include them here.

 

The difficult we do immediately.  The impossible takes a little longer.

 

Yesterday we did the possible, today the impossible.  If you want miracles come back tomorrow.