The mode by which the inevitable comes to pass is effort. (Oliver Wendell Holmes)

As threshing seperates the wheat from the chaff, so does affliction purify virtue. (Richard E. Burton)

Aim at the sun, and you may not reach it; but your arrow will fly far higher than if aimed at an object on a level with yourself. (Joel Hawes)

Too low they build below the skies. (Eward Young)

The men who succeed are the efficient few. they are the few who have the ambition and will power to develop themselves. (Herbert N. Casson)

It seems to me we can never give up longing and wishing while we are thoroughly alive. There are certain things we feel to be beautiful and good and we must hungar after them. (George Eliot)

Beware the fury of a patient man. (John Dryden)

How much have costs up the evils that never happened! (Thomas Jefferson)

When I see a bird that walks like a duck and swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, I call that bird a duck. (Richard Cushing)

The mind of the bigot is like the pupil of the eye; the more light you pour upon it, the more it will contract. (Oliver Wendell Holmes)

In a country of the blind the one-eyed man is kings. (Erasmus)

Who bravely dares must sometimes risk to fall. (Tobias Smollett)

A “No” uttered from deepest conviction is better and greater than a “Yes” merely uttered to please, or what is worse, to avoid trouble. (Gandhi)

The chief danger in life is that you may take too many precautions. (Alfred Adier)

The best way to cheer yourself up is to try to cheer somebody else up. (Mark Twain)

Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see the shadow. (Helen Keller)

When you have to make a choice and don’t make it, that in itself is a choice. (William James)

He who shooses the beginning of a road chooses the place it leads to. It is the means that determine the end. (Henry Emerson Fosdick)

Our wretched species is so made that those who walk on the well-trodden path always throw stones at those who are showing a new road. (Voltaire)

Drawing on my fine command of language, I said nothing. (Robert Charles Benchley)

Conversation would be vastly improved by the constant use of four simple words: I do not know. (Andre Maurois)

The greatest test of courage on earth is to bear defeat without losing heart. (Robert Greeen Ingersoll)

Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear – not absence of fear. (Mark Twain)

True courage is like a kite; a contrary wind raises it higher. (J. Petit-Senn)

Last, but by no means least, courage – moral courage, the courage of one’s convictions, the courage to see things through. The world is in a constant conspiracy against the brave. It’s the age-old struggle – the roar of the crowd on one side and the voice of your conscience on the other. (Douglas MacArthur)

The people to fear are not those who disagree with you, but those who disagree with you and are too cowardly to let you know. (Napoleon Bonaparte)

To avoid criticism do nothing, say nothing, be nothing. (Elbert Hubbard)

One of the secrets of life is to keep our intellectual curioosity acute. (William Lyon Phelps)

In this world there is always danger for those who are afraid of it. (G.B. Shaw)

A timid person is frightened before a danger, a coward during the time, and a courageous person afterwards. (jean Paul Richter)

Some people are so afraid to die that they never begin to live. (henry Van Dyke)

Defeat is not the worst of failures. Not to have tried is the true failure. (George Edward Woodberry)

Who asks whether the enemy were defeated by strategy or valor? (Vergil)

Defeat should never be a source of courage, but rather a fresh stimulant. (Robert South)

Desire is the essence of a man. (Benedict Spinnoza)

All human activity is prompted by desire. (Bertrand Russell)

We trifle when we assign limits to our desires, since nature hath set none. (Christian Nestell Bovee)

No man who is occupied in doing a very difficult thing, and doing it very well, ever loses his self-respect. (G.B. Shaw)

Difficulties strengthen the mind, as labor does the body. (Seneca)

Undertake something that is difficult; it will do you good. Unless you try to so something beyond what you have already mastered, you will never grow. (Ronald E. Osborn)

What we hope ever to do with ease, we must learn first to do with diligence. (Samuel Johnson)

Every noble work is at first impossible. (Thomas Carlyle)

Disappointment to a noble soul is what cold water is to burning metal; it strengthens, tempers, intensifies, but never destroys it. (Eliza Tabor)

You will never be the person you can be if pressure, tension, and discipline are taken out of your life. (james G. Bilkey)

He that has learned to obey will know how to command. (Solon)

Restlessness and discontent are the necessities of progress. (Thomas Edison)

Who is not satisfied with himself will grow; who is not sure of his own correctness will learn many things. (Chinese proverb)

All great discoveries are made by men whose feelings run ahead of their thinking. (Charles H. Parkhurst)

Better lose the anchor than the whole ship. (Dutch proverb)

Doubt is the beginning , not the end, of wisdom. (George Iles)

In all affairs it’s a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted. (Bertrand Russell)

If one advances confidently in the directions of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life has ha imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. (H.D. Thoreau)

All men of action are dreamers. (James G. Huneker)

Men do less than they ought, unless they do all that they can. (Thomas Carlyle)

The proof of the puddiing is in the eating. (Miguel de Cervantes)

many a man never fails because he never tries. (Norman MacEwan)

There is no little enemy. (Ben Franklin)

The world belongs to the energitic. (R.W. Emerson)

Energy and persistence conquer all things. (Ben Franklin)

He that is good for making excuses is seldom good for anything else. (Ben Franklin)

Men are born with two eyes, but only one tongue, in order that they should see twice as much as they say. (Charles Caleb Colton)

The only people who never fail are those who never try. (Ilka Chase)

The only time you don’t fail is the last time you try anything – and it works. (William Strong)

Ninety-nine percent of the failures come from people who have the habit of making excuses. (George Washington Carver)

I do not believe in the word Fate. It is the refuge of every self-confessed failure. (Andrew Soutar)

He who fears being conquered is sure of defeat. (Napoleon Bonaparte)

The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong. (Gandhi)

No man is free who is not a master of himself. (Epictetus)

Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration. (Thomas Edison)

It is the privilege of genius that to it life never grows commonplace as to the rest of us. (James Russell Lowell)

The man who works for the gold in the job rather than for the money in the pay envelope, is the fellow who gets on. (Joseph French Johnson)

Every man in guilty of all the good he didn’t do. (Voltaire)

Some men can live up to their loftiest ideals without ever going higher than a basement. (Theodore Roosevelt)

Don’t part with your illusions. When they are gone you may still exist, but you have ceased to live. (Mark Twain)

You cannot depend on your eyes, when your imagination is out of focus. (Mark Twain)

Most of the things worth doing in the world had been declared impossible before they were done. (Louis D. Brandeis)

Impossibility: a word only found in the dictionary of fools. (Napoleon Bonaparte)

To the timid and hesitating everthing is impossible because it seems so. (Walter Scott)

It is difficult to say what is impossible, for the dream of yesterday is the hope of today and the reality of tomorrow. (Robert H. Goddard)

He who stops being better stops being good. (Oliver Cromwell)

While the mind is in doubt it is driven this way and that by a slight impulse. (Terence)

The more we do, the more we can do. (William Hazlitt)

You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late. (R.W. Emerson)

Labor is man’s greatest function. He is nothing, he can do nothing, he can believe nothing, he can fulfill nothing, without working. (Orville Dewey)

The fruit derived from labor is the sweetest of all pleasures. (Luc de Clapiers)

Leadership: The art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it. (Dwight D. Eisenhower)

If the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch. (Matthew 15:14)

He who adds not to his learning diminishes it. (The Talmud)

Chance favors the prepared mind. (Louis Pasteur)

If a man who cannot count finds a four-leaf clover, is he lucky? (Stanislaw J. Lec)

It never troubles the wolf how many the sheep may be. (Vergil)

It is surprising what a man can do when he has to, and how little most men will do when they don’t have to. (Walter Linn)

A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds. (Francis Bacon)

Occasions are rare; and those who know how to seize upon them are rarer. (Josh Billings)

Plough deep while sluggards sleep. (Ben Franklin)

He that can have patience can have what he will. (Ben Franklin)

Aim at perfection in everything, though in most things it is unattainable. However, they who aim at it, and persevere, will come much nearer to it than those whose laziness and despondency make then give it up as unattainable. (Chesterfield)

It is reasonable to have perfection in our eye that we may always advance toward it, though we know it can never be reached. (Samuel Johnson)

By gnawing through a dyke, even a rat may drown a nation. (Edmund Burke)

Bif shots are only little shots who keep shooting. (Christopher Morley)

We make way for the man who doldly pushes past us. (Christian Nestell Boves)

Most powerful is he who has himself in his own power. (Seneca)

Never leave that till tomorrow which you can do today. (Ben Franklin)

Putting off an easy thing makes it hard, and putting off a hard one makes it impossible. (George H. Lorimer)

There is no advancement to him who stands trembling because he cannot see the end from the beginning. (E.J. Klemme)

Many individuals have, like uncut diamonds, shinig qualities beneath a rough exterior. (Juvenal)

For of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these: “It might have been!” (John Greenleaf Whittier)

The block of granite which is an obstacle in the pathway of the weak, becomes a stepping stone in the pathway of the strong. (Thomas Carlyle)

Responsibility is the price of greatness. (Winston Churchill)

Results! Why, man, I have gotten a lot of results. I know several thousand things that won’t work. (Thomas Edison)

The policy of being too cautious is the greatest rick of all. (Jawaharial Nehru)

Who bravely dares must sometimes risk a fall. (Tobias G. Smollett)

Every great advance in science has issued from a new audacity of imagination. (John Dewey)

There is no use whatever trying to help people who do not help themselves. You cannot push anyone up a ladder unless he be willing to climb himself. (Andrew Carnegie)

He that respects himself is safe from others; He wears a coat of mail that none can pierce. (H.W. Longfellow)

Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler. (Albert Einstein)

Don’t expect to build up the weak by pulling down the strong. (Calvin Coolidge)

Those who refuse to go beyond fact rarely get as far as fact. (Thomas Huxley)

You are today where your thoughts have brought you; you will be tomorrow where your thoughts take you. (james Allen)

Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of. (Ben Franklin)

Time is life money; the less we have of it to spare the further we make it go. (Josh Billings)

Broad-minded is just another way of saying a fellow’s too lazy to form an opinion. (Will Rogers)

People are very open minded about new things – as long as they’re exactly like the old ones. (Charles F. Kettering)

Tradition does not mean that the living are dead, but that the dead are living. (Gilbert K. Chesterton)

It is the little bits of things that fret and worry us; we can dodge an elephant, but we can’t dodge a fly. (Josh Billings)

Little strokes fell great oaks. (Ben Franklin)

A small leak will sink a great ship. (Ben Franklin)

Trifles make perfection – and perfection is no trifle. (Michelangelo)

There is a great difference between knowing and understanding; you can know a lot about something and not really understand it. (Charles F. Kettering)

There are no problems we cannot solve together, and very few that we can solve by ourselves. (Lyndon Baines Johnson)

A house divided against itself cannot stand. (Abraham Lincoln)

A penny will hide the biggest star in the universe if you hold it close enough to your eye. (Samuel Grafton)

No man that does not see visions will ever realize any high hope or undertake any high enterprise. (Woodrow Wilson)

As knowledge increases, wonder deepens. (Charles Morgan)

It is with words as with sunbeams – the more they are dondensed, the deeper they burn. (Robert Southey)

Nothing is really work unless you would rather be doing something else. (james Matthew Barrie)

The world is filled with willing people; some willing to work, the rest willing to let them. (Robert Frost)

It ain’t no use putting up your umbrella till it rains. (Rice)

WISDOM FROM ANDY ROONEY who has the gift of saying so much with so few words…

I’ve learned…. That the best classroom in the world is at the feet of an elderly person.

I’ve learned…. That when you’re in love, it shows.

I’ve learned…. That just one person saying to me, “You’ve made my day!” makes my day.

I’ve learned…. That having a child fall asleep in your arms is one of the most peaceful feelings in the world.

I’ve learned…. That being kind is more important than being right.

I’ve learned…. That you should never say no to a gift from a child.

I’ve learned…. That I can always pray for someone when I don’t have the strength to help him in some other way.

I’ve learned…. That no matter how serious your life requires you to be, everyone needs a friend to act goofy with.

I’ve learned…. That sometimes all a person needs is a hand to hold and a heart to understand.

I’ve learned…. That simple walks with my father around the block on summer nights when I was a child did wonders for me as an adult.

I’ve learned…. That life is like a roll of toilet paper. The closer it gets to the end, the faster it goes.

I’ve learned…. That we should be glad God doesn’t give us everything we ask for.

I’ve learned…. That money doesn’t buy class.

I’ve learned…. That it’s those small daily happenings that make life so spectacular.

I’ve learned… That under everyone’s hard shell is someone who wants to be appreciated and loved.

I’ve learned…. That the Lord didn’t do it all in one day. What makes me think I can?

I’ve learned…. That to ignore the facts does not change the facts.

I’ve learned…. That when you plan to get even with someone, you are only letting that person continue to hurt you.

I’ve learned…. That love, not time, heals all wounds.

I’ve learned…. That the easiest way for me to grow as a person is to surround myself with people smarter than I am.

I’ve learned…. That everyone you meet deserves to be greeted with a smile.

I’ve learned…. That there’s nothing sweeter than sleeping with your babies and feeling their breath on our cheeks.

I’ve learned…. That no one is perfect until you fall in love with them.

I’ve learned…. That life is tough, but I’m tougher.

I’ve learned…. That opportunities are never lost; someone will take the ones you miss.

I’ve learned…. That when you harbor bitterness, happiness will dock elsewhere.

I’ve learned…. That I wish I could have told my Mom that I love her one more time before she passed away.

I’ve learned…. That one should keep his words both soft and tender, because tomorrow he may have to eat them.

I’ve learned…. That a smile is an inexpensive way to improve your looks.

I’ve learned…. That I can’t choose how I feel, but I can choose what I do about it.

I’ve learned…. That when your newly born grandchild holds your little finger in his little fist, that you’re hooked for life.

I’ve learned…. That everyone wants to live on top of the mountain, but all the happiness and growth occurs while you’re climbing it.

I’ve learned … That it is best to give advice in only two circumstances; when it is requested and when it is a life threatening situation.

I’ve learned…. That the less time I have to work with, the more things I get done.

I’ve learned… To always read down to the last sentence

…To which I say.. AMEN!!

By Kyle Ohman
BasketballHQ.com

No matter what your occupation is in life you have different things that motivate you. Whether it is working hard to provide for your family or busting your tail because you are trying to achieve something that everyone said you couldn’t do, we all get our motivation from somewhere.

Having played collegiate and professional basketball my background is sports and without having motivation in sports you are not going to go very far. I would even take that one step farther and say without having the right things to motivate you, you will not go very far. This is not just true for sports but in everyday life as well.

In my basketball career I have played with or against hundreds of different players and it is pretty easy to see what motivates each player. Some of the motivations are pure like; wanting to be the best player they can, helping the team win, or having a chance to play at the next level. Others were not as much and might be; make a bunch of money, get all the girls, fame, etc.

I am not here to tell you “good” or “bad” on what motivates you, but I would like to give you 3 tips/warnings when deciding on what you are going to let motivate you.

Long Term Motivation

Too many people don’t have long term motivation. They are only focused on the immediate motivation of getting to the weekend, buying a new toy, or something along those lines. However when that is over it is back to the unmotivated style of life. That is why it is important to have long term goals that are going to keep you motivated and working hard.

Don’t be afraid to set a big goal and let it motivate you. You need something that is going to motivate you every day to want to do better and accomplish more in life. It is going to be something different for every person, so it is up to you to decide.

Don’t Try to Please Everyone

Something that I struggled with when I was younger was trying to please others and make everyone happy, but that is impossible. Nothing you do is going to make every single person happy. So if your motivation is to please everyone then you are always going to feel discouraged because it won’t ever happen.

Your motivation has to be to yourself and doing the best that you can. Stay true to what you believe in and what you are trying to do. After you do that pleasing others will be an added bonus but either way you will know that you stuck by what you believe in and you did your best.

This is where family and friends are really important. No matter what happens or what other people might be saying about you, they know who you are and what kind of person you are. These are the only people that should really matter to you when trying to please others or make people proud of you.

Are You Going to be Satisfied?

There are a lot of successful people in the world that have gotten where they are by being motivated by money, fame, etc. I have no argument there. My question though is this, will those people ever be satisfied? If your motivation is to get as rich as you can then you will always be wanting more and eventually it will consume you.

Fame, people, and money are always going to come and go. Putting your motivation solely in those things will never give you what you are looking for, at least in the long run.

Another big motivation that people use is proving other people wrong. Someone says that you aren’t good enough and that motivates you to work even harder. There is nothing wrong with that but I would be careful on whether you are doing it to prove to yourself that you can or to prove to them that they are wrong, there is a big difference.

There are always going to be people that say you can’t do it, but if you put your motivation in proving them wrong and are always walking around with a chip on your shoulder you are going to become a very negative person that feels like the world is against you. Choose to do something that no one says you can do to prove to yourself that you can do it, that is motivation enough.

Conclusion

Everyone needs to have motivation to have a successful life and each individual person’s motivation is going to be different. It is up to you to decide what you are going to choose to motivate you, and to help you achieve your goals in life. I hope that I have been able to help you in your process of determining what will work for you. In no way am I considered an expert on this matter but I am glad to be able to share some of my life experiences and other life experiences that I have witnessed first hand. I would love to hear your comments and opinions below. Thanks for reading!

BasketballHQ.com

Author Bio
This article was written by Kyle Ohman. Kyle was a thousand point scorer at Liberty University (div. 1), was ranked the 19th best shooter in the country by Fox Sports his senior year. Kyle has also played professionally in Spain. Most recently he coached a high school team that played on a national level and beat the 12th ranked team in the nation. Coach Ohman is the Co-Owner and founder of BasketballHQ.com

For less than a dollar, you can create and maintain motivation and success for yourself and others.

What’s the secret? A mini-notebook.

There are many different sizes available, made by many different companies. I have several that are 4″ x 6″, with 50 sheets. You are probably asking yourself how a small notebook can help you with motivation.

The steps below will explain how so much can be done with so little.

1. THE IDEA
On any given day I may think of 3-5 ideas that I would like to remember for a later time. Without a place to put these ideas, they would be lost in the daily clutter.

Your notebook is the place to write these ideas down. They may be things you have to do during the week, projects that you’d like to start, or just an idea that you need to remember.

2. THE WRITING
When one of these ideas finds its way into your head, it’s time to jot it down. Write down a simple description of the idea in your notebook.

The description should be long enough for you to remember what your idea was, but not too long as to take up too much space and time. After you have several ideas down, you want to be able to remember them quickly and fully.

3. THE ACTION
After you have thought of and written down your ideas, it’s time to put them to use. You can choose a time each day or each week when you go through your list. From this stage you can prioritize, organize, or further develop your ideas. Then you can get start doing them.

Thoughts that pop into your head now have a safe place to go. No longer will great ideas be lost. They will be written down and ready for you, whenever you are ready for them