These Quotes Can Change Your Life

They Changed Mine

Hi friends.

As the year comes to a close, I wanted to share with you all some of my favorite quotes. These can truly elevate you and and your perspective. But before we start, I wanted to remind you that there is still time to take advantage of the YouTopian Journey holiday special!

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YouTopian Journey requires a lot of research. I am constantly reading, both for knowledge and action. Whenever I find a quote that I believe is valuable, I add it to a Google document. I started this during the pandemic and the document is now 168 pages and growing. I quote everyone from philosophers to poets, psychologists to generals. Whatever I think could personally benefit you.

Feel free to copy them and use them however you want.

It is my hope that these quotes inspire, motivate, and ultimately allow you to take action toward your goals.

Enjoy!

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One last thing before we start

We will be off until January. I hope you use this time to relax, recharge, and prepare for the coming challenges that a new year often brings.

Now onto the good stuff.

On Purpose

“I would rather be ashes than dust. I would rather my spark burn out in a brilliant blaze than be stifled by dry rot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom in magnificent glow – than a sleepy and permanent planet. The proper function of man is to live, not merely exist…I shall use my time.”-Jack London

“Make voyages! Attempt them. There’s nothing else.” -Tennessee Williams

"Man is a goal seeking animal. His life only has meaning if he is reaching out and striving for his goals."-Aristotle

“This is our purpose: to make as meaningful as possible this life that has been bestowed upon us . . . to live in such a way that we may be proud of ourselves, to act in such a way that some part of us lives on.”-Oswald Spengler

“Life is never made unbearable by circumstances, but only by lack of meaning and purpose.”-Victor Frankl

On Difficulties

“It may seem difficult at first but everything is difficult at first.” Miyamoto Musashi

“I found life easy, easiest, when it demanded the most difficult things of me.”- Friedrich Nietzsche

“Difficulties are just things to overcome, after all.”-Ernest Shackleton

“Man needs difficulties; they are necessary for health.”-Carl Jung

“Human potential at its best is to transform a tragedy into a personal triumph, to turn one's predicament into a human achievement.”-Viktor Frankl

“The sweetest pleasure arises from difficulties overcome.”-Publius Syrus, The Moral Sayings of Publius Syrus: A Roman Slave

On Risk

“Forget safety. Live where you fear to live. Destroy your reputation. Be notorious.”-Rumi

“The greatest danger is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it.”-Michelangelo 

“Danger makes men classical, and all greatness, after all, is rooted in risk.”-Albert Camus, Resistance, Rebellion, and Death

“Danger alone acquaints us with our own resources: our virtues, our armor and weapons, our spirit, and forces us to be strong. First principle: one must need to be strong – otherwise one will never become strong.”-Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols

“For believe me! — the secret for harvesting from existence the greatest fruitfulness and the greatest enjoyment is: to live dangerously! Build your cities on the slopes of Vesuvius! Send your ships into uncharted seas! Live at war with your peers and yourselves! Be robbers and conquerors as long as you cannot be rulers and possessors, you seekers of knowledge! Soon the age will be past when you could be content to live hidden in forests like shy deer! At long last the search for knowledge will reach out for its due: — it will want to rule and possess, and you with it!”― Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science

“Never was anything great achieved without danger.”-Niccolo Machiavelli

On Individuality

“The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself”-Rudyard Kipling

“Few people are able to express opinions that dissent from the prejudices of their social group. The majority are even incapable of forming such opinions at all.”-Albert Einstein

“We fall captive to the herd animal if we cannot reach the individual divinity in ourselves.”-Carl Jung

“What distinguishes the majority of men from the few is their inability to act according to their beliefs. The hero is he who raises himself above the crowd. He is not a hero because he lays down his life for his country, or for a cause or principle. Indeed, in making such a sacrifice he is often cowardly rather than heroic. To run with the herd, and die with the herd, is the natural animal instinct which man shares with other beasts.”-Henry Miller

"The greatest hazard of all, losing one's self, can occur very quietly in the world, as if it were nothing at all. No other loss can occur so quietly; any other loss- an arm, a leg, five dollars, a wife, etc.-is sure to be noticed."-Soren Kierkegaard

On Action

“I’m not in a contest with anybody, have no thoughts about immortality, don’t give a damn about it. It’s the ACTION while you’re alive. The gate springing open in the sunlight, the horses plunging through the light…the glory is in the motion and the dare. Death be damned. It’s today and today and today. Yes.”-Charles Bukowski

“The test of any man lies in action.”-Pindar

“Good actions give strength to ourselves and inspire good actions in others.”-Plato

“An idea that is developed and put into action is more important than an idea that exists only as an idea.”-Buddha

“Get action. Seize the moment. Man was never intended to become an oyster.”-Theodore Roosevelt

On Time

“A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life.”-Charles Darwin

“Everyone lets the present moment slip by, then looks for it as though he thought it were somewhere else.”-Yamamoto Tsunetomo

“When young, one is confident to be able to build palaces for mankind, but when the time comes one has one’s hand full just to be able to remove their trash.”-Goethe

“This is precisely the risk modern man runs: he may wake up one day to find that he has missed half his life.”  -Carl Jung, Practice of Psychotherapy

“You must match time’s swiftness with your speed in using it, and you must drink quickly as though from a rapid stream that will not always flow.”-Seneca

“Live in the present. The past is gone; the future is unknown -- but the present is real, and your opportunities are now. You must see these opportunities; they must be real for you. The catch is that they can't seem real if your mind is buried in past failures, if you keep reliving old mistakes, old guilts, old tragedies. Fight your way above the many inevitable Traumatizations of your ego, escape damnation by the past, and look to the opportunities of the present. I don't mean some vague moment in the present -- next week or next month, perhaps. I mean today, this minute.”-Maxwell Maltz

On Persistence

“Remember you will not always win. Some days, the most resourceful individual will taste defeat. But there is, in this case, always tomorrow - after you have done your best to achieve success today”-Maxwell Maltz

“Don't yield! Keep up your courage! The same sun looks down on all of us!”-Eiji Yoshikawa, Musashi: An Epic Novel of the Samurai Era

“Nearly always, the depth of a failure foreshadows the height of some victory-to the man who never despairs but keeps on climbing.”-Edward E. Purinton, Efficient Living

“He who climbs upon the highest mountains laughs at all tragedies, real or imaginary.”-Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra

“The path of genius has ever been of thorns-not roses; for the roses lure to the valley, while the thorns point to the stars.”-Edward E. Purinton, Efficient Living

Final Thoughts

If YouTopian Journey has helped you this year, please upgrade from a free subscription to paid. Your support will help cover the cost of the art as well as reaching new people who need YouTopian Journey in their life.

I leave you with my favorite quote and hope it helps you as we prepare for 2023.

“The purpose of life is to be defeated by greater and greater things.”-Rainer Maria Rilke