We Are All Met to Shine!

Love and Hope

An act of love, a voluntary taking on oneself of some of the pain of the world, increases the courage and love and hope of all.

Dorothy Day

Courage, Faith and Growth

Difficult situations often bring out qualities in us that otherwise might not have risen to the surface, such as courage, faith, and our need for one another. All of our experiences can help us to grow.

Be Optomistic

Be courageous. Change and improve each day. Do your best and don't look back. See learning and change as opportunities. Try new things. Consider several options. Meet new people. Ask lots of questions. Keep track of your mental and physical health. Be optimistic.

Courage

Courage is being responsible for your own actions and admitting your own mistakes without placing blame on others. It's relying not on others for your success, but on your own skills and efforts.

Think for Ourselves

To lead a life in which we are inspired and can inspire others, our hearts have to be alive; they have to be filled with passion and enthusiasm. To achieve that, we need the courage to live true to ourselves. Rather than borrowing from or imitating others, we need the conviction to be able to think for ourselves and to take action out of our own sense of responsibility.

The Gifts

Strength, courage and wisdom are just some of the gifts you get from overcoming adversity.

Strength, Courage and Confidence

You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face… The danger lies in refusing to face the fear, in not daring to come to grips with it… You must make yourself succeed every time. You must do the thing you think you cannot do.

- Eleanor Roosevelt

The Greatest Help

I have found that the greatest help in meeting any problem with
decency and self-respect and whatever courage is demanded, is to know
where you yourself stand. That is, to have in words what you believe
and are acting from.

- William Faulkner

Courage

Courage is personal bravery in the face of fear. It is going ahead even when you feel like quitting. It is needed in trying new things, in facing the truth and in picking yourself up after a mistake, ready to try again.

Be Disheartened by Your Imperfections

Be patient with everyone, but above all with yourself. I mean do not be disheartened by your imperfections, but always rise up with fresh courage. How are we to be patient in dealing with our neighbour's faults if we are impatient in dealing with our own? He who is fretted by his own failings will not correct them. All profitable correction comes from a calm and peaceful mind.

- St. Francis de Sales

Act in Spite of Your Mood

It takes courage to act regardless of your current mood. It's easy to succumb to your feelings. But remember, your feelings come from your thoughts, and you have the power to change your thoughts. When you change your thoughts, you will change the way you feel. Instead of focusing on how you're not in the mood, focus on the benefit of completing whatever needs to get done. Focus on how you'll feel when you’re finished and how proud you'll be of yourself for acting in spite of not being in the perfect mood.

Courage

Moral courage and character go hand in hand .... a man of real character is consistently courageous, being imbued with a basic integrity and a firm sense of principle.

- Martha Boaz

It Takes Courage

It takes courage
To refrain from gossip
When others delight in it,
To stand up for the absent person
Who is being abused.

It takes courage
To live honestly
Within your means,
And not dishonestly
On the means of others.

It takes courage
To be a REAL man or a TRUE woman,
To hold fast to your ideals
When it causes you
To be looked upon
As strange and peculiar.

It takes courage
To be talked about,
And remain silent,
When a word would justify you
In the eyes of others,
But which you dare not speak
Because it would injure another.

It takes courage
To refuse to do something
That is wrong
Although everyone else
May be doing it
With attitudes as carefree
As a summer song.

It takes courage
To live according
To your own convictions,
To deny yourself
What you cannot afford.
To love your neighbor
As yourself

- Anonymous

Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear.

- Ambrose Redmoon

True Progress

Optimism is essential to achievement and it is also the foundation of courage and true progress.

- Nicholas Murray Butler

Earth, Teach Me

Earth teach me quiet ~ as the grasses are still with new light.
Earth teach me suffering ~ as old stones suffer with memory.
Earth teach me humility ~ as blossoms are humble with beginning.
Earth teach me caring ~ as mothers nurture their young.
Earth teach me courage ~ as the tree that stands alone.
Earth teach me limitation ~ as the ant that crawls on the ground.
Earth teach me freedom ~ as the eagle that soars in the sky.
Earth teach me acceptance ~ as the leaves that die each fall.
Earth teach me renewal ~ as the seed that rises in the spring.
Earth teach me to forget myself ~ as melted snow forgets its life.
Earth teach me to remember kindness ~ as dry fields weep with rain.

- A Ute Prayer

Courage/Succuss Inspired

"It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done better.

The credit belongs to the man in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly… who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who have never know either victory or defeat."

Teddy Roosevelt

Starring Player in Life

One cannot become a starring player in life if one is easily swayed by one's emotions over every little thing. Strength of character lies in performing the drama of life with courage and confidence, practicing self-reflection and self-control under any circumstances.

- Daisaku Ikeda

Hope

Courage, it would seem, is nothing less than the power to overcome danger, misfortune, fear, injustice, while continuing to affirm inwardly that life with all its sorrows is good; that everything is meaningful even if in a sense beyond our understanding; and that there is always tomorrow.

- Dorothy Thompson