Inspiration and Quotes

[Alethea]

*applaud*

[Knightwatch]

Not a quote, exactly, but I love every word of this ad.

"...an unreasonable desire to push self-imposed suck beyond its logical limit; what comes out the other side becomes legendary..."

"Y'gotta embrace the pain, push the threshold, and feel the suck. And then you have to muster the courage to go back six times a week."

[kahn265]

3 words I came across recently in my Crossfit reading:

kaizen - Japanese word used by Samurai soldiers. It means, to search for constant improvement.

BUIYATAOO - acronym - Believe Unconditionally In Yourself And The Ability Of Others

TWAHCD - means - Thoughts lead to Words, lead to Actions, to Habits, to Character to DESTINY

[sandman]

Friend of mine posted this on their FaceBook page the other day, and I had to share it.

There really are no excuses... are there?

[makotoisle]

...

[GymratAnarchist]

"Suffer now, and live the rest of your life as a champion" ~ Muhammad Ali

[NukeTheUnicorns]

"The indispensable first step to getting the things that you want out of life is this: decide what you want."

probably my favorite quote.

[Flytch]

IF you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,

Or being hated, don't give way to hating,

And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;

If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

And treat those two impostors just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken

Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

To serve your turn long after they are gone,

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

' Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,

if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,

Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,

And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!

--Rudyard Kipling, "IF"

I have that stuck up on my wall

[PaulRein]

I don't have many exercise-specific quotes, but it seems general ones are in abundance as well.

Curiosity and imagination:

"Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less."

—Marie Curie

"You see things as they are and ask, 'Why?' I dream things as they never were and ask, 'Why not?'"

—George Bernard Shaw

Perserverance:

"I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work."

—Thomas A. Edison

“If you are going through hell, keep going.â€

— Winston Churchill

Finding meaning:

"You can't do anything about the length of your life, but you can do something about its width and depth."

— H.L. Mencken

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines, Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream."

—Mark Twain

On doing the right thing:

"When others do a foolish thing, you should tell them it is a foolish thing. They can still continue to do it, but at least the truth is where it needs to be."

— Dukhat, Babylon 5, "Atonement"

"The truth is incontrovertible, malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end; there it is."

— Winston Churchill

On skepticism:

"Education has failed in a very serious way to convey the most important lesson science can teach: skepticism"

—David Suzuki

"The skeptic does not mean him who doubts, but him who investigates or researches, as opposed to him who asserts and thinks that he has found"

—Miguel de Unamuno

"Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd."

—Voltaire

Being my own self:

"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."

—William Shakespeare, "Hamlet", act 1, scene 3

"The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself."

—Friedrich Nietzsche

"Speak against unconscious oppression,

Speak against the tyranny of the unimaginative,

Speak against bonds."

—Ezra Pound

"Eccentricity is not, as dull people would have us believe, a form of madness. It is often a kind of innocent pride, and the man of genius and the aristocrat are frequently regarded as eccentrics because genius and aristocrat are entirely unafraid of and uninfluenced by the opinions and vagaries of the crowd."

—Edith Sitwell

"Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions."

—Albert Einstein

"Whenever you find you are on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect."

—Mark Twain

"I may climb perhaps to no great heights, but I will climb alone."

—Cyrano De Bergerac

"If being sane is thinking there's something wrong with being different....I'd rather be completely fucking mental."

—Angelina Jolie

And I end by quoting Groucho Marx:

"Those are my principles. If you don't like them I have others. "

:-)

[Cienfuegos]

I read this thread and felt pretty inspired by some of the things...even put some of them on my facebook. So I figured I would add a few that speak to me:

-"There is nothing like deep breaths after laughing that hard. nothing in the world like a sore stomach for the right reasons."-The Perks of Being a Wallflower (How true that laughing and being sore or hard of breathing is always much better accepted when it is done in the company of friends?)

-"Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great."- Mark Twain (I love this one because, to me, it means that your friends should challenge you...but do it in a way that makes you believe you can become your best you.)

-"Believe those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those who find it." - Andre Gide (Ah...these quotes always get me. You always find people that claim to know. or "take it from me". Just be cautious of those who claim to have found the answer)

-"Some people walk in the rain, others just get wet." - Roger Miller (Delightful quote that describes people's attitudes towards life. There are people that always complain...and those that always smile. Which are you? Do you walk in the rain or do you simply get wet?)

-“Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. So is a smile never decreases by being shared”-Buddha (Always share a smile. You will notice more people respond to sugar than with salt)

Those are just a few of my favorites. Hope they are enjoyed.

[Alethea]

Nice, DarkKent! I like your candle quote. That's true of so much of life. If there's anything this board has taught me, it's that energy and happiness shared isn't halved in each person, it becomes twice as strong.

[1fever]

Favorite of all time...its quite motivating and brilliant.

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat." -Theodore Roosevelt

[MegaCarp]

Well actually one of my favorite quotes is derived from my faith.

"Therefore, since we have these promises, dear friends, let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God." - 2 Corinthians 7:1 (NIV)

"You cannot plough a field by turning it over in your mind." - Anonymous

[dan_ho]

Quotes that inspire me:

"As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives."

"Simplify, simplify." - Thoreau

"None but ourselves can free our mind." - Bob Marley

When it comes to enjoying life and making use of who we are, all of us can, it's just that some don't. - Taoism

To know you have enough, is to be rich. - Taoism as well

And lastly (for now) - the natural result of appreciating, learning from, and working with whatever happens in everyday life is happiness. (Don't remember where this is from.)

These are all quotes that are moreso mentally inspiring.. they're some of the reasons that I'm generally happy 95% of the time, regardless of what happens.

[MarcTheEngineer]

Kipling's "IF" is one of my favorites as well - It's a wickedly inspirational poem.

“I swear, by my life and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.” - Ayn Rand

A favorite about the importance of achieving for yourself and not for others expectations.

[Alethea]

applicable to our Challenges:

"I can do anything for a month. And then I'll go from there. " - Matt Frazier of www.nomeatathlete.com

[dan_ho]

Steve quote - Put one foot in front of the other and see what happens.

[Alethea]

"Experience has taught me that man, in the fix we were, is the worst and most desperate creature on earth, and will do things that seem utter impossibilities before their accomplishment." - Private John Alfred Wilson

[trailgirl]

Last year I printed out a few quotes and stuck them in my wallet. I pulled them out whenever I was having a hard time at work, which was at least once a day. I also read them before every race, to psych myself up . IF, by Rudyard Kipling, has been called out by many of you - here's a few more:

“Just once I wanted a task that required all the joy I had. Day after day I had noticed that if I waited long enough, my strong unexpressed joy would dwindle and dissipate inside me, like a fire subsiding . . . . Just this once I wanted to let it rip.â€

-Annie Dillard

"If you become restless, speed up. If you become winded, slow down. You climb the mountain in an equilibrium between restlessness and exhaustion."

- Robert Pirsig

"The miracle isn't that I finished. The miracle is that I had the courage to start."

-John Bingham, running speaker and writer

"Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss it you will land among the stars."

-Les Brown

The AmeriCorps Pledge

I will get things done for America -

to make our people safer,

smarter, and healthier.

I will bring Americans together

to strengthen our communities.

Faced with apathy,

I will take action.

Faced with conflict,

I will seek common ground.

Faced with adversity,

I will persevere.

I will carry this commitment

with me this year and beyond.

I am an AmeriCorps member,

and I will get things done.

[MMyers]

http://artofmanliness.com/2009/04/25/manvotional-robert-services-the-quitter/

The Quitter

By: Robert Service

When you’re lost in the Wild, and you’re scared as a child,

And Death looks you bang in the eye,

And you’re sore as a boil, it’s according to Hoyle

To cock your revolver and . . . die.

But the Code of a Man says: “Fight all you can,â€

And self-dissolution is barred.

In hunger and woe, oh, it’s easy to blow . . .

It’s the hell-served-for-breakfast that’s hard.

“You’re sick of the game!†Well, now, that’s a shame.

You’re young and you’re brave and you’re bright.

“You’ve had a raw deal!†I know-but don’t squeal,

Buck up, do your damnedest, and fight.

It’s the plugging away that will win you the day,

So don’t be a piker, old pard!

Just draw on your grit; it’s so easy to quit:

It’s the keeping-your-chin-up that’s hard.

It’s easy to cry that you’re beaten-and die;

It’s easy to crawfish and crawl;

But to fight and to fight when hope’s out of sight-

Why, that’s the best game of them all!

And though you come out of each grueling bout,

All broken and beaten and scarred,

Just have one more try-it’s dead easy to die,

It’s the keeping-on-living that’s hard.

[Vader]

Favorite of all time...its quite motivating and brilliant.

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat." -Theodore Roosevelt

That's a classic. I don't live up to it - but I'm trying harder, these days.

There's a lot of good, inspirational material in this thread. I need to figure out a few of my own favorites (besides ol' TR there) and make sure I have readily-available copies for moments of ... forgetfulness.

[Lowenna]

"Pain is temporary. It may last a minute, or an hour, or a day, or a year, but eventually it will subside and something else will take its place. If I quit, however, it lasts forever.”

Lance Armstrong

"The greatest griefs are those we cause ourselves"

Sophocles (496BC-406BC)

"It's not that I'm so smart, it's just that I stay with the problem longer."

Albert Einstein

"Once you learn to quit, it becomes a habit."

Vince Lombardi

[Adonaijah]

Most of my inspirational quotes come from Firefly: more specifically, from Malcolm Reynolds.

"We have done the impossible. That makes us mighty."

"The way it is is the way it is. We deal with what's in front of us."

Also, some of my favorite inspiring moments come in exchanges.

Shepherd Book: Why did you take them in when you stand to gain nothing from it?

Malcolm Reynolds: Because it's the right thing to do.

Simon Tam: You've been chased by the Alliance, outlaws, and savages. Over half the people on this ship are shot or wounded, including yourself. And you're harboring known fugitives.

Malcolm Reynolds: We're still flying.

Simon Tam: That's not much.

Malcolm Reynolds: It's enough.

[Lowenna]

Simon Tam: You've been chased by the Alliance, outlaws, and savages. Over half the people on this ship are shot or wounded, including yourself. And you're harboring known fugitives.

Malcolm Reynolds: We're still flying.

Simon Tam: That's not much.

Malcolm Reynolds: It's enough.

Love that one, also love firefly.