But that doesn't mean that we humans lack the ability to encourage, equip and grow each other through our own life experiences and one such collection of that hard-earned wisdom is one of my favorite books, "The Best of Success". Recognize the temporal perspectives of all who are quoted but learning from their mistakes and resolutions can be a help as you navigate the life you are about to begin. So here, in honor of the Class of 2019 graduates, are some of my favorite quotes from that book.
Belief - "Whether you think you can or think you can't, you are right." - Henry Ford / "The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today." - Franklin Roosevelt / "In order to succeed we must first believe that we can." - Michael Korda
Courage - "One man with courage is a majority." - Andrew Jackson / "You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience which you must stop and look fear in the face . . . You must do the thing you think you cannot do." - Eleanor Roosevelt / "Courage is doing what you're afraid to do. There can be no courage unless you're scared." - Eddie Rickenbacker
Desire - "For the resolute and determined there is time and opportunity." - Ralph Waldo Emerson / "Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any other one thing." - Abraham Lincoln /
Excellence - "If a man has done his best, what else is there?" - George S. Patton / "Success is the maximum utilization of the ability that you have." - Zig Ziglar / "The kind of people I look for to fill top management spots are the eager beavers, the mavericks. These are the guys who try to do more than they're expected to do, they always reach." - Lee Iacocca
Failure - "Failure is only the opportunity to more intelligently begin again." - Henry Ford / "The successful man will profit from his mistakes and try again in a different way." - Dale Carnegie / "Failure is success if we learn from it." - Malcom S. Forbes
Goals - "If you don't know where you are going, how can you expect to get there?" - Basil S. Walsh /
This one step, choosing a goal and sticking to it, changes everything." - Scott Reed /
Honesty - "Honesty is the first chapter of the book of wisdom." - Thomas Jefferson / "No legacy is so rich as honesty." - William Shakespeare / "Rather fail with honor than succeed by fraud." - Sophocles
Imagination - "Our aspirations are our possibilities." - Robert Browning / "The empires of the future are empires of the mind." - Winston Churchill / " Far away there in the sunshine are my highest aspirations. I may not reach them, but I can look up and see their beauty, believe in them, and try to follow where they lead." - Louisa May Alcott
Love - "What force is more potent than love?" -Igor Stravinsky / "The best portion of a good man's life, his little nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love." - William Wordsworth
Opportunity - "A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds." - Francis Bacon / "In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity." - Albert Einstein /
Persistence - "I do not think there is any other quality so essential to success of any kind as the quality of perseverance. It overcomes almost everything, even nature." - John D. Rockefeller / "Most people give up just when they're about to achieve success. They quit on the one yard line. They give up at the last minute of the game one foot from a winning touchdown." - H. Ross Perot / "Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent." - Calvin Coolidge
Responsibility - "Hold yourself responsible for a higher standard than anybody else expects of you. Never excuse yourself." - Henry Ward Beecher / "We have forty million reasons for failure, but not a single excuse." - Rudyard Kipling
