Self Improvement

Extracted from The Little Book of Self Improvement - Compiled by GYAN C. JAIN
Publisher: TECH PUBLICATIONS PTE LTD

• The greatest of faults is to be concious of none.
• The world belongs to the optimists, pessimists are only spectators.
• It is funny things about life; if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it. (found in A Father's Book of Wisdom too!)
• Sow a thought and you reap an act;
  Sow an act and you reap a habit;
  Sow a habit and you reap a character;
  Sow a character and you reap a destiny.
• A Bad Habit is an Occassional Caller, then a Guest and finally a Master.
• We have to learn to be our own best friends because we fall too easily into the trap of being our worst enemies.
• We do not see things as they are. We see things as we are. (found in A Father's Book of Wisdom too!)
• To survive? Bend with the wind. Only the dead are stiff tight.
• The cause of all evils is the desire for power.
• The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.
• The prickly thorn often bears soft roses.
• The saint seeks comrades and the devil seeks slaves.
• The smallest act of kindness is worth more than the grandest intention.
• The difference between the impossible and the possible lies in a person's determination.
• The first and best victory is to conquer oneself.
• To succed? Take risks! Timid people don't go far.
• To be patient shows great understanding; quick temper is the height of folly.
• The ultimate test of a relationship is to disagree but to hold hands.
• The time is always right to do what is right.
• To solve your problems, bend your thinking and seeing.
• Truth nourishes Soul - Untruth corrodes it.
• The scent of flowers travel not against the wind.
• We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all that we need to make us happy is something to be enthusiastic about. (found in A Father's Book of Wisdom too!)
• We protest when others lock us up, yet we willingly lock our seeing, hearing and thinking.
• We are but tourists in this world, and the most contented tourist is one who travels light.
• What is worth keeping is worth possessing. But first, is there anything worth possessing?
• What lies before us and what lies beyond us is tiny compared to what lies within us.
• Virtue is never left to stand alone. He who has it will have good neighbours.
• To conceal ignorance is to increase it.
• To err is human, to forgive divine.
• Time and tide wait for none.
• To avoid criticism, do nothing, say nothing, be nothing.
• The service of poor is the worship of God.
• What we need today is not more knowledge but more compassion and discernment.
• When you resent someone and continue resenting for long, he lives rent-free in your head.
• Weed them out,
  Keep them out,
  Sweep them out,
  But weeds
  Will not come out.
  Don't give up so easily.
• When you feel uncomfortable, that's when learning will take place.
• Violence is the weapon of the weak.
• Virtue never grows old.
• Victory belongs to the most persevering.
• What a wonderful life I've had! I only wished good of everybody.
• What about you seeing things from my point of view for a change?
• To change the world? First, start with yourself.
• To see is to know; to desire is to be able to; to dare is to have.
• When love and skill work together, expect a masterpiece.
• When there is room in the heart there is room in the house.
• Whatever crisis, fire of love will melt it.
• Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve.
• What we are is the result of our thoughts.
• Why allow past experiences to retard present progress?
• Why allow the judgement of others about you to control your life?
• Why seek outside that which is within you.
• You have to stay awake to make dreams come true.
• The fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against these there is no law.
• The good man diffuses fragrance in all directions.
• Look up and not down, look forward and not back, look out and not in, and lend a hand.
• Where envying and strife are, there is confusion, and every evil work.
• You draw nothing out of the bank of life except what you deposit in it.
• You will never find a better teaching partner than adversity.
• Visible things come from invisible.
• Waste not fresh tears over old grief.
• We learn from the mistakes we make.
• You eat stolen food if you don't labour.
• You should never be too busy to say 'Please' and 'Thank you'.
• You should not look for romance where you work.
• We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of dark; the real tragedy of life is when adults are afraid of the light.
• Womanliness means only motherhood;
  All love begins and ends there.
• The Greeks gave us the most beautiful word in our language: the word 'enthusiasm' - from the Greek En Theo which means 'inner God'.
• Yesterday is but today's memory and tomorrow is today's dream.
• You are never a loser until you quit trying.
• The hopeful man sees success where others see failure.
• We work in the present for the future.
• Pain is inevitable, but misery is optional.
• To reduce our desires is to elevate our mind.
• When you change your behaviour,
  You change your performance;
  When you change your performance,
  You change your Life.
• The secret of success is making your vocation your vacation.
• Under-achievers, over-achievers, non-achievers, must we always be achieving? Help me to achieve a stage when I no longer need to achieve.
• We are what we choose to be.
• When money speaks, truth keeps silent.
• You are judged by your actions.
• The game they say, "is never lost till won".
• The more we know, the more we know that much more we don't know.
• Sixty four muscles are used to frown but only 18 muscles are used to smile. So why over work your facial muscles.
• It is an old maxim in the school,
  That flattery is the food of the fool.
  Yet now and then, you men of wit,
  Will agree to take a little bit.
• It is a lesson you should heed,
  Try Try again,
  If at first thou don't succeed,
  Try Try again.
• A consistent man believes in destiny, a capracious man in chance. Men are wise in proportion not to their experience but to their capacity for the experience.
• A great man is always willing to be little.
• A liar is never believed even though he tells the truth.
• A life spent in making mistakes is more honourable.
• A man who will steal for me will steal from me too.
• A man without a smiling face must not open a shop.
• A man wrapped up only in himself makes a very small bundle.
• A crocodile at home can beat an elephant,
  But if it goes out a dog can make it pant.
• A cup is useful only when it is empty, and a mind that is full of beliefs, dogmas, assertions and bigotry is really an uncreative mind.
• A good name, like goodwill, is got by many actions and lost by one.
• A man can succeed at almost anything for which he has unlimited enthusiasm.
• A good man places the benefits he confers beneath his feet; those he receives nearest to his heart.
• A man there was, and they called him mad; the more he gave, the more he had.
• A man is but a product of his thoughts; what he thinks, that he becomes.
• A good life is the only good religion.
• A man may prosper by crime, but not for long.
• A man without patience is a lamp without oil.
• A benevolent person is like a fountain, watering the earth and spreading fertality. It is therefore, more delightful and more honourable to give than to receive.
• A deed that brings dishonour, whereby a man must fall, that causes disadvantage, please- don't do it at all.
• A little more determination,
  A little more pluck,
  A little more work,
  That is called Luck.
• A fool says, "I can't", a wise man says, "Yes, I will"
• A man is robbed on the Stock Exchange. Very few persons get out of it with money.
• A proverb is a short sentence based on long experience.
• A flatterer is a secret enemy.
• A man's best friends are his ten fingers.
• A partnership with the powerful is never save.
• All our earnings without charity are nothing worth.
• All great men come out of the middle classes.
• All great discoveries are made by men whose feelings run ahead of their thinking.
• All human actions have one or more of these seven causes: chance, nature, compulsion, habit, reason, passion, desire.
• All books are divisible into two classes, the books of the hour, and the books of all time.
• After his cabinet had voted "No" on emancipation, Lincoln raised his right hand and said, "The ayes have it and we are going to end slavery".
• Advice is something the wise don't need, and the fools won't take.
• Admitting erroer clears the score and proves you wiser than before.
• Adversity causes some men to break; others to break records.
• According to a study of unsuccessful executives, inability to make decisions is one of the principal reasons of failure.
• All problems become smaller if you don't avoid them, but confront them. Touch a thistle timidly and it pricks you; grasp it boldly, and its spine crumbles.
• All ambitions are lawful except whose which climb upward on the miseries or exploitation of mankind.
• Smoking is a custom loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, dangerous to the lungs. It fills you with horrible and stinking fumes and smoke.
• A fault confessed is more than half amended.
• A fool and his money are soon parted.
• A human being's first responsibility is to shake hands with himself.
• Always choose the third best. First best is never going to come. Second best will take too long to come. Third best is the only alternative.
• A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night and in between does what he wants to do.
• An optimist may see a light where there is none, but why must the pessimist always run to blow it out?
• A full purse never lacks friends.
• A good memory is trained to forget trivials.
• A good reputation is a person's greatest wealth.
• A man without ideals, is a ship without rudder.
• A thoughtless life is like that of a beast.
• A wise enemy is better than a foolish friend.
• Admit when you are wrong.
• All news have swift wings.
• A pessimist is a person who blows out the candle to see how dark it is.
• Accomplishing the impossible means only that the boss will add it to your regular duties.
• Activity is life, inactivity is death.
• A true friend never gets in your way unless you happen to be going down.
• Advice is what we ask for when we already know the answer but wish we did not.
• Absence sharpens love; presence strengthens it.
• A water pot is filled by the constant falling water, drop by drop.
• Behold the turtle. He makes progress only when he sticks his neck out. (found in A Father's Book of Wisdom too!)
• No horse get anywhere till he is harnessed. No steam or gas ever drives anything until it is confined. No Niagara is ever turned into light and power until it is tunnelled. No life ever grows great until it is focussed, dedicated and disciplined.
• Are we serving that which was meant to serve us? Are you servant or master of Money?
• Flus, coughs, colds and headaches? I am so thankful to them, for they are God's gentle ways of telling me to slow down!
• Ask, and you will receive; seek and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened.
• Be curious always: For knowledge will not acquire you; you must acquire it.
• Because I can't save time for future use, I'd better use it all to the fullest now.
• As you sow, so shall you reap.
• Be realistic: Plan for a miracle.
• Best men are moulded by their faults.
• Behold within thyself the glory of God.
• Blessings to the man who respects the elders.
• Better get a stiff neck from aiming too high than a hunch back from aiming too low.
• If commitment, compassion, and care come from the heart, how come we spend so much time and energy meeting the needs of the head?
• If at first you don't succeed, nothing to worry. You're running about average.
• If he is spreading rumours about me, he's got a problem. But if I react in the same manner, I've caught his virus.
• Better to die once than to die daily.
• Better to wear out than to rust out. (found in A Father's Book of Wisdom too!)
• Books, like friends, should be well chosen.
• Blind is he who hides his shortcomings.
• Company of fools is like company of enemies.
• Compliment others, even if your throat chokes.
• Choose a job you love and you will never have to work a day in your life. (found in A Father's Book of Wisdom too!)
• Don't go around saying the world owes you a living: the world owes you nothing; it was here first.
• Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed.
• Do not be anxious about tomorrow; it will look after itself.
• Excuses, Excuses, Excuses! How long are you to clutch at these crutches?
• Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.
• Even every wrong step is another step forward.
• Don't be discouraged. It's often the last key in the bunch that opens the lock.
• Cowards die many a times before their death.
• Deeds like seeds, take their own time to fructify.
• People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don't believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can't find them, make them.
• Don't tell me this is a difficult problem. If it weren't difficult, it wouldn't be a problem.
• First we form habits, then they form us. Conquer your bad habits, or they'll eventually conquer you.
• Every prize has a price. Consider the price before you aim for your prize!
• Experience is the worst teacher; it takes the test before presenting the lesson.
• Good instinct usually tells you what to do long before your head has figured it out.
• Do not be misled by flattery.
• Eat to live, don't live to eat.
• Difficulties are stepping stones to success.
• Failure is the teacher which teaches success.
• Enlarge your capacity to receive so that you can give.
• God cannot be everywhere; so he created a mother in every house.
• Destiny is not a matter of chance, it is a matter of choice; it is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be acheived.
• Optimist: One who finds an opportunity in every difficulty.
  Pessimist: One who finds a difficulty in every opportunity.
• Hospitality is to be shown even towards an enemy. The tree doth not withdraw its shade, even from the woodcutter.
• By faith, one can do everything.
• Burdens become light when cheerfully borne.
• Deserve before you desire.
• Honour is commanded, not demanded.
• Faith is tested only in tense situations.
• Faults could be eradicated by open confession.
• Give your decision and not the reason.
• Good opportunities are often disguised as hard labour. That's why so few people recognise them.
• Fall seven times, stand up eight.
• Our imagination is the only limit to what we can hope to have in the future.
• By the time a man realises that may be his father was right, he usually has a son who says "father! you are wrong." (found in A Father's Book of Wisdom too!)
• Gratitude is not only the greatest virtues, but the parent of all the others. (found in A Father's Book of Wisdom too!)
• Fear is that little darkroom where negatives are developed.
• Fear is pain arising from the anticipation of evil.
• Few wishes come true by themselves.
• Gratitude is the heart's memory.
• Thoughts of doubt and fear are pathways to failure. When you conquer negative attitudes of doubt and fear you conquer failure. Thoughts crystallise into habits and solidify into circumstances.
• The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.
• The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds; and the pessimist fears this is true.
• However rough the conditions, tough times never last, tough people always do outlast.
• I would rather be a failure at something I enjoy than be a success at something I hate.
• Happiness is not the absence of problems; but the ability to deal with them. (found in A Father's Book of Wisdom too!)
• For realization of truth, read the lives of saints.
• Give all, gain all. Keep all, lose all.
• Give and take is the only cooperation.
• Humour is like salt in the food of life.
• Hatred injures the hater, never the hated.
• Heroism consists of hanging on one minute longer than the others.
• Instant availability without continuous presence is probably the best role a mother can play.
• Grief can take care of itself, but to get the full value of joy we must have somebody to divide it with.
• I've never been poor, only broke. Being poor is a frame of mind. Being broke is a temporary situation.
• Gold is tested by fire.
• Humble thyself in all things.
• Grief is a tree that has tears for its fruit.
• Have no fear of perfection - you'll never reach it.
• Having it all does not necessarily mean having it all at once.
• Happiness is good health and bad memory.
• Guilt - the biggest luggage we carry around!
• It takes as much courage to have tried and failed as it does to have tried and succeeded.
• Good advice is hard to get, but even harder to follow.
• He who has God on his side, has all.
• I will speak ill of no man, and speak all the good I know of everybody.
• He who loves praise, loves temptation.
• Idle man is carried on someone's back.
• If a man has common sense, he has all the sense there is.
• Forgive and forget.
• Imagination is the highest kite one can fly.
• 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 failures. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. (found in A Father's Book of Wisdom too!)
• If you carry your childhood with you, you never become older.
• If you want a place in the sun, you must have the shade of the family tree.
• If we are adamant about a point, check to see if our prejudice and ego is not involved.
• If you are not fired with enthusiasm, you'll be fired sooner or later.
• Kindness consists in loving people more than they deserve.
• It takes two to quarrel.
• Loose tongues lose pals.
• In egoism lies all trouble.
• If you seek the pearls you must dive below.
• Lust, Pride & Grief are the real enemies of man.
• Losers visualise the penalties of failure. Winners visualise the rewards of success.
• Let the refining and improving of your own life keep you so busy that you have little time to criticise others.
• Many of life's failures are people who did not realise how close they were to success when they gave up.
• Marriage is an empty box. It remains empty unless you put in more than you take out.
• It is dangerous to be too good.
• Marriage should be a duet; when one sings, the other claps.
• Love is friendship set to music.
• Life is not a bed of roses, it is full of thorns.
• Leisure is the time for doing something useful.
• In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.
• It is better to die for something than to live for nothing.
• Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echos are truly endless.
• If speak one must, speak as little as possible.
• If winter comes, can spring be far behind!
• Keep your fears to yourself, but share your courage with others.
• Let us fear God & we shall cease to fear man.
• Life has less wrinkles if you know how to laugh it away.
• Life is a series of moments. To live each one is to succeed.
• Loyalty brings its own reward.
• Life spent in service is the only fruitful life.
• On a busy highway drive as fast as you can. You will find some vehicles ahead of you. This is true in life too. Be patient, you cannot get ahead of everybody.
• Live fully! Life is too important to be taken seriously!
• Life must be understood backwards. But it must be lived forwards.
• Life is as simple or as difficult as you make it out to be.
• Live life. Use up all your years. Don't let life leave you!
• May all your troubles last as long as your New Year's Resolutions.
• More people die of worry than of natural causes.
• Nectar turns poison if poison is added to it.
• Never give in. Never, Never, Never.
• Living with God, there are no difficulties.
• Long is the night for him who cannot sleep.
• Mistakes are one part of the dues one pays for a successful life.
• No person was ever honoured for what he received. Honour has been the reward for what he gave.
• Some men see things as they are and say why? I dream things that never were and say 'Why not?' (found in A Father's Book of Wisdom too!)
• The only way to avoid being miserable is not to have enough leisure to wonder whether you are happy or not.
• Never mind failures, they are quite natural.
• More you indulge, more unhappy you are.
• Noise does not cancel noise. Silence does.
• Mother is the name for God on the lips and hearts of little children.
• Manners reveal family, speech reveals education.
• No one can make you feel inferior without your consent. (found in A Father's Book of Wisdom too!)
• One can not reach the dawn save by the path of the night.
• One should never consent to creep when one feels an impulse to soar.
• Only he can be a leader who never loses hope.
• Obsession with the possession of things prevents us from enjoying them.
• Some people are always grumbling because roses have thorns. I am thankful thorns have roses.
• Nothing makes a man more productive than the last minute.
• Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood.
• Poverty helps me to be appreciate things which I take for granted.
• Poverty, not wealth makes me rich.
• Nothing works without rules.
• The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.
• Pray as if everything depended on God and act as if everything depended on yourself.
• People are not remembered by how few times they fail, but by how often they succeed.
• Overworked? Who isn't? Even my dog is panting from overwork... chasing its own tail!
• Rare is the person who can weigh the faults of others without putting his thumb on the scales.
• Recreation should be an essential part of our life for it is the re-creation of life.
• Pessimist never won any battle.
• Pride swallows up a man completely.
• Outward peace is useless without inner peace.
• Put chains on your ambitions or you might land up chained.
• Please you? Why don't you please me for once?
• Remember, a dead fish can float downstream, but it takes a live one to swim upstream.
• Many of the things you can count, don't count. Many of the things you can't count, really count.
• The least that we could do was to remove the fear of failure so that you can now fail happily.
• Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature... Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.
• Nothing of value comes without effort.
• Nobody will rob you, if you sleep under the sky.
• Seek the good in life but don't hate the rest.
• The longer you can look back, the further you can look forward.
• Man indulges in pleasure, it consumes the man.
• Prejudice prevents us from seeing and hearing the truth.
• Pride... It's so hard to get rid of because we ride on it.
• Reason can answer questions, but imagination has to ask them.
• Real happiness springs from sorrow and sufferings.
• Recall it as often as you wish, a happy memory never wears out.
• Science may never come up with a better office communication system than the coffee break.
• Like a ship without destination, work without an aim is useless.
• Some do not delegate because they want to be the gate-keepers.
• Success is getting what you want. Happiness is liking what you get. (found in A Father's Book of Wisdom too!)
• Man can move mountains by faith.
• Prayer needs a heart, not a voice.
• When you change your thinking,
  You change your belief;
  When you change your belief,
  You change your expectation;
  When you change your expectation,
  You change your attitude;
  When you change your attitude,
  You change your behaviour.
• Success doesn't come the way you feel it does, it comes from the way you think and do.
• Some are enslaved by their past. Others are so future oriented that they are useless in the present.
• Success means getting your "ifs" and "buts" out of the way.
• Success is simply a matter of luck. Ask any failure.
• Teach your children to be grateful. Don't teach them to demand.
• Success is failure turned inside out.
• Speech is the index of the mind.
• Spring is nature's way of saying. Let's Party.
• Saddle your dreams before you ride them.
• Stress comes because we stress too much.
• Success seems to be largely a matter of hanging on after others have already left.
• Wisdom comes not from extensive reading but from an inward inspection and reflection.
• When the body sends you warnings, take heed, don't wait till it goes on strike. It might be too late.
• When we can see the insignificance of significance and the significance of insignificance, we know where we are.
• The wise are not moved by praise or blame.
• The lowest ebb is the turn of the tide.
• A smile costs nothing but means so much.
• Speak the truth, but leave immediately after.
• There is no shortcut to any place worth going.
• There is no moment when you cannot serve.
• Tenderness is the chief gift of great men.
• There are no hopeless situations in life; there are only men who have grown hopeless about them.
• There are times when silence has the loudest voice.
• There is no security on this earth, there is only opportunity.
• Those who do not know, want everything. Those who know, want nothing.
• To be paid to do a job which I love is life's greatest blessing.
• Thorough preparation makes its own luck.
• The best remedy for a short temper is a long walk.
• Solid rock is not shaken by the gale.
• Things do not change; We change.
• The sun, with all those planets revolving around it and dependent on it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as if it had nothing else in the universe to do.
• The busy bee has no time for sorrow.
• The go-getter may use others to achieve his ends; the enlightened is prepared to be used.
• There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.
• There are three ingredients in the good life: learning, earning, and yearning.
• Teachers must shape their pupils carefully, for the young ones will ape what they see.
• There is not enough darkness in the whole world to put out the light of a single candle.
• It does not cost anything to be nice.
• The only cure for grief is action.
• The greedy are ever needy.