self-improvement Quotes

“RULE 4: Compare yourself to who you were yesterday, not to who someone else is today”

Maybe self-improvement isn’t the answer, maybe self-destruction is the answer.

“Every human being has the freedom to change at any instant.”

“When we are no longer able to change a situation . . . we are challenged to change ourselves.”

″There’s no way to benefit anybody unless we start with ourselves.″

“I think everyone makes a mistake at least once in their life. The important thing is what you learn from it.”

If you have behaved badly, repent, make what amends you can and address yourself to the task of behaving better next time. On no account brood over your wrongdoing. Rolling in the muck is not the best way of getting clean.

“But whilst man takes delight in this honest and lawful pursuit of his wellbeing, it is to be apprehended that he may in the end lose the use of his sublimest faculties; and that whilst he is busied in improving all around him, he may at length degrade himself.”

“If I really want to improve my situation, I can work on the one thing over which I have control - myself.”

“Sow a thought, reap an action; sow an action, reap a habit; sow a habit, reap a character; sow a character, reap a destiny.”

″Making and keeping promises to ourselves precedes making and keeping promises to others…. it is futile to put personality ahead of character, to try to improve relationships with others before improving ourselves.″

″If you want to have a happy marriage, be the kind of person who generates positive energy and sidesteps negative energy rather than empowering it. If you want to have a more pleasant, cooperative teenager, be a more understanding, empathic, consistent, loving parent. If you want to have more freedom, more latitude in your job, be a more responsible, a more helpful, a more contributing employee. If you want to be trusted, be trustworthy. If you want the secondary greatness of recognized talent, focus first on primary greatness of character.″

“Promise yourself to give so much time to the improvement of yourself that you have no time to criticize others.”

“We strive for the best and attach great importance to getting into the finest institutions we can. But rarely do we stop and consider whether the most prestigious of institutions is always in our bets interest.”

“The place to improve the world is first in one’s own heart and head and hands, and then work outward from there.”

“Dreams often come one size too big so that we can grow into them.”

“you get what you can, try to keep that and add to it if possible.”

“If your goal is to avoid pain and escape suffering, I would not advise you to seek higher levels of consciousness or spiritual evolution. First, you cannot achieve them without suffering, and second, insofar as you do achieve them, you are likely to be called on to serve in ways more painful to you, or at least demanding of you, than you can now imagine. Then why desire to evolve at all, you may ask. If you ask this question, perhaps you do not know enough of joy.”

“It was, however, clear to everyone that Eustace’s character had been rather improved by becoming a dragon. He was anxious to help.”

“The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers.”

“I’m a believer in the perfectibility of human beings. I think we can be better. I think we can be perfect or near to it. And when we become our best selves, the possibilities are endless.”

“Your life will not get straightened out until your mind does.”

“It is only because of problems that we grow mentally and spiritually. When we desire to encourage the growth of the human spirit, we challenge and encourage the human capacity to solve problems, just as in school we deliberately set problems for our children to solve. It is through the pain of confronting and resolving problems that we learn.”

″‘That’s all right,’ said Edmund. ‘Between ourselves, you haven’t been as bad as I was on my first trip to Narnia. You were only an ass, but I was a traitor.‘”

“Those who are enlightened never stop forging themselves.”

“The only person you need to be better than is the person you were yesterday.”

“Life is growth. If we stop growing, technically and spiritually, we are as good as dead.”

“The Art of Peace begins with you. Work on yourself and your appointed task in the Art of Peace. Everyone has a spirit that can be refined, a body that can be trained in some manner, a suitable path to follow.”

“Large does not always defeat little. Little can become large by constant building; large can become little by falling apart.”

“Sociologists call the process of the melting pot “social mobility.” One of America’s characteristics has always been the lack of a rigid class structure. It has traditionally been possible for people to move up the social and economic scale.”

“Sooner or later, we are bound to discover some things about ourselves that we don’t like. But once we see they’re there, we can decide what we want to do with them.”

“Restoration. I like the word. The house, the land, perhaps ourselves. But restored to what? Our lives are full. It’s our zeal for all this work that amazes me.”

“My controllers, average age now twenty-seven, were asking themselves, ‘What do you do after you have been to the Moon?’ They had come to us at the beginning of Apollo, in their early twenties. Now, with NASA limiting the program to only three more missions, they were taking it the hardest. Mission Control was their portal to the stars; they believed we had taken only that first ‘giant step for mankind’ and could not understand why we were not taking the next leap forward. I knew how they felt.”

“One might say that the ability to evaluate one’s own ability is the most important skill of all. Without it, improvement is impossible. And certainly, ego makes it difficult every step of the way. It is certainly more pleasurable to focus on our talents and strengths, but where does that get us? Arrogance and self-absorption inhibit growth. So does fantasy and ‘vision.’ ”

“You will evolve. Not everyone will get it. Evolve anyway.”

“You only need to take a series of tiny steps, consistently, over time, to radically improve your life.”

“A man who has a language consequently possesses the world expressed and implied by that language.”

“I don’t care how good you think you are, or how great others think you are—you can improve, and you will. ”

“The obstacle in the path becomes the path. Never forget, within every obstacle is an opportunity to improve our condition.”

“Each time, you’ll learn something. Each time, you’ll develop strength, wisdom, and perspective. Each time, a little more of the competition falls away. Until all that is left is you: the best version of you.”

“Failure really can be an asset if what you’re trying to do is improve, learn, or do something new.”

“I still don’t know what it really means to grow up. However, if I happen to meet you, one day in the future, by then, I want to become someone you can be proud to know.”

“You can only correct what you are willing to confront.”

“Conquer the demons in you before letting the demons in others conquer you.”

“The more conceited members of the race think in terms of an endless ascent—or promotion ad infinitum. I would point out that, sooner or later, man must reach his level of life-incompetence.”

“Move toward challenges that will toughen and improve you.”

“What does Christopher Robin do in the mornings? He learns. He becomes Educated. He instigorates—I think that is the word he mentioned, but I may be referring to something else—he instigorates Knowledge. In my small way I also, if I have the word right, am—am doing what he does.”

“I will work harder.”

I feel that I ought to be a very good girl indeed. It’s at times like this I’m sorry I’m not a model little girl; and I always resolve that I will be in future. But somehow it’s hard to carry out your resolutions when irresistible temptations come.

Mrs. Allan says we should never make uncharitable speeches; but they do slip out so often before you think, don’t they? I simply can’t talk about Josie Pye without making an uncharitable speech, so I never mention her at all.

Exchange this false life of thine for a true one.

Jo had the least self-control, and had hard times trying to curb the fiery spirit which was continually getting her into trouble. Her anger never lasted long, and having humbly confessed her fault, she sincerely repented and tried to do better.

“You have had a warning. Remember it, and try with heart and soul to master this quick temper, before it brings you greater sorrow and regret than you have known today.”

“I think you will prosper, for the sincere wish to be good is half the battle.”

“Marriage is an excellent thing, after all. I wonder if I should blossom out half as well as you have, if I tried it?”

It’s highly virtuous to say we’ll be good, but we can’t do it all at once, and it takes a long pull, a strong pull, and a pull all together before some of us even get our feet set in the right way.

“I’m going into business with a devotion that shall delight Grandfather, and prove to him that I’m not spoiled. I need something of the sort to keep me steady. I’m tired of dawdling, and mean to work like a man.”

You must resolve upon one simple and single line of conduct, and for a man of your intelligence, this plan is as easy as it is necessary; you must form honorable friendships, and by that means counteract the prejudice which may attach to the obscurity of your former life.

“You must teach me a small part of what you know,” said Dantès, “if only to prevent your growing weary of me. I can well believe that so learned a person as yourself would prefer absolute solitude to being tormented with the company of one as ignorant and uninformed as myself.”

She had not any dresses... none at all, but she got herself up as though she were going on a visit; and not that she’d anything to do it with, she smartened herself up with nothing at all, she’ d done her hair nicely, put on a clean collar of some sort, cuffs, and there she was, quite a different person, she was younger and better looking.