A good quote can touch your heart and stir your soul. Many people have their favourite quote placed in a spot where they can see it every day. I love a good quote because it makes me think. I have been collecting quotes for several years now, but a few years ago it struck me that because I read so much, I should be extracting quotes from the books I read. I started doing that and I was having fun, but I stopped for no reason. I guess it’s like some things in life where we forget to do the things that bring us joy.

Below are 21 quotes that I like – and there is nothing magical about the number 21 – and some of them I pulled directly from books I read, so the only place you’ll see them is if you read the books they came from.

January 2011

“Learn to enjoy every minute of your life. Be happy now. Don’t wait for something outside of yourself to make you happy in the future. Think how really precious is the time you have to spend, whether it’s at work or with your family. Every minute should be enjoyed and savored.” Earl Nightingale, Radio Announcer, Author and Speaker

“The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one.” Mark Twain, American Writer

“Do something every day towards your intention, however remote your goal may have to be.” Dorothea Brande, Wake Up And Live!

February 2011

“To succeed, planning alone is insufficient. One must improvise.” Salvor Hardin (Character in Foundation by Isaac Asimov)

“Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature nor do the children of man as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.” Helen Keller

“Take the first step in faith, you don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.” Martin Luther King Jr.

March 2011

“It was character that got us out of bed, commitment that moved us into action and discipline that enabled us to follow through.” Zig Ziglar, American author, salesperson, and motivational speaker

“If you run after two hares, you will catch neither.” Thomas Fuller

“I will laugh at the world. And with my laughter all things will be reduced to their proper size. I will laugh at my failures and they will vanish in the clouds of new dreams; I will laugh at my successes and they will shrink to their true value. I will laugh at evil and it will die untasted; I will laugh at goodness and it will thrive and abound. Each day will be triumphant only when my smiles bring forth smiles from others.” Og Mandino, The Greatest Secret In The World

April 2011

“The abundant life does not come to those who have had a lot of obstacles removed from their path by others.  It develops from within and is rooted in strong mental and moral fiber.”  William Mather Lewis

“When we give from a place of love, rather than from a place of expectation, more usually comes back to us than we could ever have imagined.” Susan Jeffers, Feel The Fear And Do It Anyway

May 2011

“The greatest power that a person possesses is the power to choose.”  J. Martin Kohe

“Even a relatively minor action, if undertaken with conscious awareness of how imprints make us see an otherwise “neutral” or “empty” world as we do, will lead to tremendous results.” Geshe Michael Roach, The Diamond Cutter

June 2011

“Failure is not a single, cataclysmic event. You don’t fail overnight. Instead, failure is a few errors in judgment, repeated every day.” Jim Rohn

July 2011

“You only lose energy when life becomes dull in your mind. Your mind gets bored and therefore tired of doing nothing. Get interested in something! Get absolutely enthralled in something! Get out of yourself! Be somebody! Do something! The more you lose yourself in something bigger than yourself, the more energy you will have.” Norman Vincent Peale, Pastor, Speaker and Author

August 2011

“By being discontented, the spirit searches for ways to improve its condition and for a better channel for expressing itself. This sense of discontent is the engine that drives all creativity and innovation… Our blue moments are a necessary part of our human evolution.” Chin-Ning Chu, Working Woman’s Art of War

September 2011

“Every super successful [professional] is constantly working to improve skills. Why? You must be a perpetual student to become a master in any field. Those who never achieve their potential in life simply do not exercise their innate capacity to learn and grow.” Ted Nicholas, Magic Words That Bring You Riches

“We are all connected and operate within living fields of thought and perception. The world is not fixed but is in constant flux; accordingly, the future is not fixed, and so can be shaped.” Joseph Jaworski, Synchronicity: The Inner Path of Leadership

October 2011

“True effectiveness is a function of two things: what is produced (the golden eggs) and the producing asset or capacity to produce (the goose).” Stephen R. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

November 2011

“By looking carefully at things that excite us we can train our eyes to see what others may not notice.” David Finn, How To Look At Everything

December 2011

“Do all the good you can. By all the means you can. In all the ways you can. In all the places you can. At all the times you can. To all the people you can. As long as you can.” John Wesley (1703-1791), Founder of the Methodist Church

How can you use this information? What do you have to add to the conversation? Let’s keep the conversation flowing, please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the right hand side) by email or RSS Feed.

All book links are affiliate links.

Related posts:

1. Are You Ready For 2011?
2. 7 Quotes That Inspire Successful People
3. What to Expect for 2011
4. 10 Great Quotes You Are Unlikely to Find Elsewhere
5. Another 10 Quotes to Inspire and Why

Are you your brother’s keeper? In what ways are you helpful? What are your thoughts? Zig Ziglar said, “You can have everything in life you want, if you will just help other people get what they want.” What are your thoughts, do you agree with Zig Ziglar’s quote?

We live in a culture that’s primarily survival of the fittest, where we are always competing with each other. But what if instead of competing we decided to create something that would benefit mankind? And what if instead of thinking me-me-me, we decided to lend a hand to someone in need?

Simple Application

What if you are trying to master a subject, one of the ways in which you can test your newly acquired knowledge is to teach the information to others. In doing that you are helping others to help yourself and you are spreading knowledge in the process. Another way would be to mentor another person, who is on the same path as you, and it doesn’t have to be a formal mentoring relationship. You could explain to them what to expect, pitfalls, lessons learned and so on. What are other ways to be your brother’s keeper?

Let’s keep the conversation flowing, please comment. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the left side) by email or RSS Feed. I created a Mini Learning Toolkit and you can grab a copy by clicking here.

Bookmark & Share

Related posts:

1. How Are You Helpful?

“Korean CEOs read an average of two or three books per month, which was slightly lower than what their counterparts at western companies who read on average 1,000 pages per month,” says a research report by Samsung Economic Research Institute (SERI) documented in Korea Economic Trends, NO.333, August 7, 2004. Assuming that the average book is 200 – 250 pages in length, western CEOs read four to five books each month.

Another unrelated study by the Institute for Policy Studies and United for a Fair Economy indicates that, “in 2007, CEOs in the United States took home an average of $10.5 million, 344 times the take-home for typical American workers . Thirty years ago, chief executives averaged only 30 to 40 times the average American worker paycheck.”

Is there a connection between how much you read and earning potential? Can you afford not to read in a 24/7 world where the ability to apply knowledge is KING?

Earl Nightingale in his audio program Lead The Field, quotes Louis Shores, a librarian, poet, social activist, and maverick educator as saying:

“Each of us must find his own 15-minute period each day for reading. It’s better if it’s regular. The only requirement is the will to read. With it, you can find 15 minutes, no matter how busy the day. That means you will read half a book a week, two books a month, 20 a year and 1,000 in a lifetime.”

But in the age of rapid change, reading half a book a week is simply not enough. How about reading a book a week which is on par with western CEOs? Allocate 30 minutes each day for reading instead of the 15 minutes that Louis Shores recommends.

Finding time to read

There are 365 days in a year, which means that you have 8,760 hours every year. If you sleep eight hours each night, there are 5,840 hours when you are awake. Subtract 2,080 hours for a 40-hour workweek and you are left with 3,760 hours to use however you choose. Couldn’t you take 130 of those hours to invest in your professional development? That’s just half-an-hour a day, five days a week. Wake up 30 minutes earlier or go to bed 30 minutes later to carve out your reading time.

In Better Than Good, Zig Ziglar mentions a University of Southern California study, which revealed that

“If you live in a metropolitan area and drive 12,000 miles a year, in three years’ time you can acquire the equivalent of two years of college education in your automobile… As a result, you can get the type of education that will equip you more effectively for what you are doing.”

Based on the research results, Zig Ziglar came up with the concept of “Automobile University.” Today, the concept could be called “Mobile University” since so many people use public transportation for their long commutes. Commute times can be used for reading or listening to books.

Look at each day, how much time is spent waiting: doctor’s office, checkout lines, delayed flights and so on. Those precious minutes could be spent listening to or reading a book

When going on road trips with family and friends, instead of listening to only music and talk radio, also include a few audio programs that everyone can enjoy.

Any professional can find at least 30 minutes each day to dedicate to reading. Make sure that you always have a book with you for the unexpected delays.

Excerpts from the workbook Journey to Getting It

Related Post

Building Intellectual Power One Book at a Time
To Read or Not to Read, Now That’s the Question

Photo credit: Avil Beckford

Related posts:

1. To Read or Not to Read, Now That’s the Question