Quotes
by Richard Denny
Progress
is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds
cannot change anything.
- George Bernard Shaw
A
bank is a place that will lend you money if you can prove that you don't
need it." Bob Hope
"Well-bred
instinct meets reason halfway." George Santayana
"There
is no satisfaction without a struggle first."
---Marty Liquori
"Self-confidence is the first
requisite to great undertakings."
Samuel
Johnson
"I didn't worry about it too much. I
knew what I wanted to do and where I wanted to be."
---- Kenny Brown, winner of the 2003 Napa Valley Marathon, commenting on
his emergence from a portable restroom just as the event was starting.
Somebody at Umstead telling the story about
a runner (himself?) being charged by a bear during a run--his friend ran but he stayed put. After
the bear lost interest and left, when asked by the friend why he hadn't
run, runner said, "The bear decides if I get eaten. I decide
where."
Marketing authority Tony Robbins says that
the definition of insanity is to do the same things you've always done and
expect to get different results.
"The reason most people never reach their goals is that they
don't define them, or ever seriously consider them as believable or
achievable. Winners can tell you where they are going, what they plan to
do along the way, and who will be sharing the adventure with them."
Denis
Watley
"I've found my true sport! You're actually encouraged to
eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and M&M's while you do
it!" Beth
Shiller
Few
understand the mental agony through which an athlete must pass
before he can give his maximum--and how rarely, if he is built such as
I, he can give it." -Sir Roger Banister, who made history when he ran
the first sub-4 minute mile on May 6, 1954 at Oxford's Iffley Road track
************************************************
This month's quote is by Galen
Rowell. Galen and his wife Barbara
died in a plane crash on August 11, 2002. He was a friend of everyone
who loved the outdoors. His photos were on book covers, pages and
calendars all over the world. In addition, Galen was an accomplished
ultrarunner who ran the Ohlone Wilderness 50Km Trail Run in the San
Francisco Bay Area.
"Humanity is all better for it when creative individuals succeed in
communicating their life's most important visions into the minds of
others." Galen Rowell, August 23, 1940 - August 11, 2002
"The child is grown, the dream is gone and
I have become comfortably numb."
---- Lyrics from the Pink Floyd anthem "Comfortably Numb."
"There is nothing like returning to a place
that remains unchanged to find
the ways in which you yourself have altered." -Nelson Mandela
"The will to win is nothing without the
will to train."
---Juma Ikangaa
"There is no satisfaction without a struggle first."
---Marty Liquori
"Frustration
is the first step toward improvement. I have no incentive to improve if I'm content with what I can do. It's only
when I face frustration and use it to fuel my dedication that I feel myself moving forward." John "the Penguin" Bingham.
"From
the outside this runner's world looks unnatural. the body punished, the appetites denied, the
satisfactions
delayed, the motivations that drive most men ignored. The truth is
that the runner is not made for the things and people and institutions that
surround him." George Sheehan
"What
I have realized through all this is that I have absolutely no fear of my
death. It is inevitable and for the most part, I cannot control the time,
place and how. What I can control is how I live my life up until that
point."
"So, for myself, I intend to live my life as usual albeit with an
increased sense of awareness for my surroundings in the unlikely chance
that at the end of this, possibly some action I took will make a
difference."
---- Allan Field, a streak runner from Columbia, Md., commenting on
UltramarathonWorld.com about his daily running pursuit that began Jan. 1,
1980.
"May the road rise up to greet you, and the wind always be
at your back"
- Irish proverb
The race is not always to the swift
But to those who keep on running.
"You have to recognize
when the right place and the right time fuse and take advantage of that
opportunity. There are plenty of opportunities out there. You can't sit
back and wait."
Ellen Metcalf
"The
marathon is the ultimate endurance test. Oh sure, people sometimes
go longer than that. But 26 miles 385 yards is where racing ends and
where ludicrous extremes begin."
"No one can
possibly achieve any real and lasting success or 'get rich' in business by
being a conformist."
J. Paul Getty
"All
cases are unique, and very similar to others."
T.S. Eliot ("The Cocktail Party," 1949)
"A discovery is said
to be an accident meeting a prepared mind."
Albert von Szent-Gyorgyi
"So much of what we call management consists in making it
difficult for people to work."
Peter Drucker
"A bear, however hard
he tries, grows tubby without exercise."
Pooh's Little Instruction Book (inspired by A. A. Milne)
"It's a recession when
your neighbor loses his job; it's a depression when you lose yours."
Harry S. Truman
"What
the eye sees not, the heart craves not."
Dutch proverb
INSPIRATION
A young and successful executive was traveling down a neighborhood
street, going a bit too fast
in his new Jaguar. He was watching for kids darting
out from between parked
cars and slowed down when he thought he saw
something.
As his car passed, no children appeared. Instead, a brick smashed into
The Jag's side door! He slammed on the brakes and spun the Jag back to
the
Spot from where the brick had been thrown.
He jumped out of the car, grabbed some kid and pushed him up against a
parked car shouting, "What was that all about and who are you?
Just what
the heck are you
doing?!" Building up a head of steam he went on. That's a
new car and that brick you
threw is going to cost a lot of money. Why did you
do it?"
"Please, mister, please. I'm sorry, I didn't know what else to
do,"
pleaded the youngster.
"I threw the brick because no one else would stop..."
Tears were dripping down the boy's chin as he pointed around the parked
car.
"It's my
brother," he said. "He rolled off the curb and fell out of his
wheelchair and I can't lift
him up." Sobbing, the boy asked the executive, "Would
you please help me get him back into his wheelchair? He's hurt and
he's too
heavy for me."
Moved beyond words, the driver tried to swallow the rapidly swelling lump
in his throat. He lifted the young man back into the wheelchair and took
out
his handkerchief and wiped the scrapes and cuts, checking to see that
everything was going to be okay. "Thank you and may God bless
you," the
grateful child said to him.
The man then watched the little boy push his brother down the sidewalk
toward their home. It was a long walk back to his jaguar....a long, slow
walk. He never did repair the side door. He kept the dent to remind
him
notto go through life so fast that someone has to throw a brick at you
to
get your attention.
"God whispers in your soul and speaks to your heart. Sometimes when
you
don't have time to listen, He has to throw a brick at you. It's your
choice:
Listen to the whisper-or wait for the brick."
The Greatest
Occupation
A few months ago, when I was picking up the children at school,another
mother I knew well rushed up to me. Emily was fuming with indignation.
"Do you know what you and I are?" she demanded.
Before I could answer and I didn't really have one handy - she
blurted out the reason for her question. It seemed she had just returned
from renewing her driver's license at The County Clerk's office.
Asked by the woman recorder to state her occupation, Emily had
hesitated,uncertain how to classify herself.
What I mean is," explained the recorder, "do you have a job, or
are you just a..." "Of
course I have a job," snapped Emily. "I'm a mother."
"We don't list 'mother' as an occupation...'housewife' covers
it,"said the recorder emphatically.
I forgot all about her story until one day I found myself in the
same situation, this time at our own Town Hall.
The Clerk was obviously a career woman, poised, efficient, and
possessed of a high-sounding title like
"Official Interrogator" or "Town Registrar."
"And what is your occupation?" she probed.
What made me say it, I do not know. The words simply popped out.
"I'm a Research Associate in the field of Child
Development and Human Relations."
The clerk paused, ballpoint pen frozen in midair, and looked up as
though she had not heard right. I
repeated the title slowly, emphasizing the most significant
words. Then I stared
with wonder as my pompous announcement
was written in bold, black ink on the official questionnaire.
"Might I ask," said the clerk with new interest, "just what
you do in your field?"
Coolly, without any trace of fluster in my voice, I heard myself reply,
"I have a continuing program of research (what mother doesn't)
in the laboratory and in the field (normally I would have said indoors and
out). I'm working for my
Masters (the whole darned family) and already have four credits (all
daughters). "Of
course,the job is one of
the most demanding
in the humanities (any mother care to
disagree?) and I often work 14
hours a day (24 is more like it). But
the job is more challenging than most run-of-the-mill careers and the
rewards are in satisfaction rather
than just money.
There was an increasing note of respect in the clerk's voice as she
completed the form, stood up, and personally ushered me to the door. As I
drove into our driveway, buoyed up by my glamorous new
career, I was greeted
by my lab assistants - ages 13, 7, and 3.
Upstairs I could hear our new experimental model (6 months) in the
child-development program, testing out a new vocal pattern. I felt
triumphant! I had scored a
beat on bureaucracy! And I had
gone on the official records as someone more distinguished and
indispensable to mankind than"just another mother."
Motherhood...what a glorious career. Especially
when there's a title on the
door. Send this to another Mother you know. Whether a stay at
home Mum or a career Mum, we should all carry this title.
The Images of Mother:
4 YEARS OF AGE ~ My
Mommy can do anything!
8 YEARS OF AGE ~ My
Mom knows a lot! A whole lot!
12 YEARS OF AGE ~ My Mother
doesn't really know quite everything.
14 YEARS OF AGE ~ Naturally,
Mother doesn't know that, either.
16 YEARS OF AGE ~ Mother?
She's hopelessly old-fashioned.
18 YEARS OF AGE ~ That old
woman? She's way out of date!
25 YEARS OF AGE ~ Well, she
might know a little bit about it.
35 YEARS OF AGE ~ Before we
decide, let's get Mom's opinion.
45 YEARS OF AGE ~ Wonder
what Mom would have thought about it?
65 YEARS OF AGE ~ Wish I
could talk it over with Mom.
"I
gutta suffer a little every day, or I'm not happy."
Lance Armstrong
We have a choice: to plow new ground or
let the weeds grow."
Jonathan
Westover
Implementing the second-best idea now
is often a better strategy than waiting a week or a month or a year to
come up with the perfect idea.
"The ability to ask the right
question is more than half the battle of finding the answer."
Thomas J.
Watson
The fullness in life lies in dreaming
and manifesting the impossible dream.
- Sri
Chinmoy
"Take calculated risks. That is
quite different from being rash."
George S.
Patton
"more than a race but a life
challenge"
"Nothing is a waste of time if you
use the experience wisely."
Auguste
Rodin
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