Favorite Inspirational Quotes

Lose this day loitering -’twill be the same story
Tomorrow - and the next more dilatory;
Each indecision brings its own delays,
And days are lost lamenting o’er lost days.
Are you in earnest? seize this very minute-
Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.
Only engage, and then the mind grows heated–
Begin it, and then the work will be completed!

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (from Faust)

Wow! I have read the boldness line before and thought it was great, but how much more wonderful the rest of this passage. This is the key. This is the secret to achieving what you want - to begin to do what you want.

How many of us, and I sheepishly raise my hand, put off beginning to do what we say we want. The task is too overwhelming. The circumstances are not right. The list goes on and on. We procrastinate and don’t make a decision to do anything.

And then how many more days do we lose whining about the days we’ve lost. Later we look back and say, “If only…” How much better it would be if we simply took action, if we simply begin to do what we say we want at least at some level. No matter what your age now, you sure don’t want to look back later and wonder how different things could have been if you had taken action.

It doesn’t even matter if what you do fails or you realize you made a mistake. At least you did something and now you know better about what you want or maybe you just need to figure out how to do it better. As Dyer has said elsewhere in his book, “You cannot fail. You can only produce results.”

I have copied this and put it where I can see it, the whole thing, not just the line about boldness. I vow to seize the moment. Dyer says to list five things you’ve been thinking about. Just the act of writing them down and “the mind grows heated.” Then begin with the first thing you wrote down today. Just begin to take action and once in motion, you will tend to stay in motion. Seize this very minute!