It is easy to desire to be good, to progress, to change, but it only happens when we apply and actually do the work necessary for the desired change. Wishful thinking never made anyone rich, beautiful, or happy. Only honest accomplishment does that. –Kabalarian Teachings

There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till. The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried. –Ralph Waldo Emerson

I cannot stress too deeply the importance of one's constructive mental attitude toward life. One gets out of life only what one puts into it; everything must be seeded in different degrees. Always express happy thoughts and keep an uncomplaining mind. A complaining mind is a destructive one-destructive to health and happiness. How easily we may be made unhappy depends upon the weakness and ignorance of our own minds. Happy thoughts expressed are like the sunbeams that create warmth-that stimulate one's sense of well being and make us feel happy. Give happiness and you will receive it in return: it is a natural phenomenon of a balanced and well-ordered mind. Do not complain; instead seek the solution to the problem, and then you can do something constructive about it. This can best be accomplished by forgetting self; too much false value is placed upon self and personality, thus developing an overrated and inflated ego that sees all things in proportion to its own ignorance. –Alfred J. Parker

I would rather be ashes than dust; I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry-rot; I would rather be in a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow than in a sleepy and permanent planet; the proper function of man is to live, not to exist; I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them; I shall USE my time. –Jack London