Every situation, properly perceived, becomes an opportunity. –Helen Schucman

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

The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well. –Ralph Waldo Emerson

Nothing truly stops you. Nothing truly holds you back, for your own will is always within your control. Sickness may challenge your body. But are you merely your body? –Epictetus