Once you get rid of the idea that you must please other people before you please

yourself, and you begin to follow your own instincts - only then can you be succ essful. You become more satisfied, and when you are other people tend to be sati sfied by what you do. -Raquel Welch Our self-image strongly held essentially determines what we become. -Maxwell Ma ltz You've got to take the initiative and play your game. In a decisive set, confide nce is the difference. -Chris Evert Lloyd Confidence imparts a wondrous inspiration to its possessor. -John Milton Self-confidence is self-determinism. One's belief in one's ability to determine his own course. As long as one has that, he's got the universe in his pocket. L. Ron Hubbard I used to mull over the strange absence of real kindness in Negroes, how unstabl e was our tenderness, how lacking in genuine passion we were, how void of great hope, how timid our joy, how bare our traditions, how hollow our memories, how l acking we were in those intangible sentiments that bind man to man, and how shal low was even our despair. -Richard Wright It is the dull man who is always sure, and the sure man who is always dull. -H. L. Mencken What are the hallmarks of a competent writer of fiction? The first, it seems to me, is that he should be immensely interested in human beings, and have an eye s harp enough to see into them, and a hand clever enough to draw them as they are. The second is that he should be able to set them in imaginary situations which display the contents of their psyches effectively, and so carry his reader swift ly and pleasantly from point to point of what is called a good story. -H.L. Men cken To the man with an ear for verbal delicacies the man who searches painfully for the perfect word, and puts the way of saying a thing above the thing said there is in writing the constant joy of sudden discovery, of happy accident. -H.L. Me ncken If you're able to be yourself, then you have no competition. -Barbara Cook Asking many questions is of no value if you are not willing to listen to the ans wers. -China Sinclair There are questions that are better left unasked, namely questions that are aske d with deliberate intention to distract others from the disclosing of truth. -C hina Sinclair Do not focus on your weaknesses to the exclusion of failing to capitalize on you r strengths. -China Sinclair God rarely allows a soul to see how great a blessing he is. -Oswald Chambers When we lose one blessing, another is often most unexpectedly given in its place . -C.S. Lewis Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep. -Scott Adams There are only two ways to be quite unprejudiced and impartial. One is to be com pletely ignorant. The other is to be completely indifferent. -Charles Curtis No rewards will be given to the person in whom no chances have been taken. -Chi na Sinclair The road to inspiring people is to give them a clear and vivid picture of their future in which circumstances are improved, with the advantages of enjoying more real benefits. -China Sinclair Those difficult at first, with persistence and patience, can become easy at last . -China Sinclair They're both, baseball and reading, for people who aren't afraid of being bored. -Roger Angell The only way to discover the limits of the possible is to go beyond them into th e impossible. -Arthur C. Clarke If it's sanity you're after, There's no recipe like laughter Laugh it off. -Henry Rutherford Eliot Man does not come to know God through workshe comes to know God by faith through

grace. You cannot work your way toward happiness and heaven, you cannot moralize your way, you cannot reform your way, you cannot buy your way. It comes as a gi ft of God through Christ. -Billy Graham Everything in the world is connected to something else in some way. The intellig ent, forward looking person takes time to reflect and talk about how they are. -China Sinclair Teaching the miracles of God without teaching the character of God is to stress what He does but not who He Is. -China Sinclair Wobbly steps typically precede steady ones. As much as we'd like to believe in a m agic bullet, there are no shortcuts when it comes to learning how to write. -Ra lph Fletcher and JoAnn Portalupi, Craft Lessons, 2nd Edition. While many animals are properly called intelligent, humans distinguish themselve s in that they are so flexibly intelligent, fashioning their neural circuits to match the task at hand. It is for this reason that we can colonize every region on the planet, learn the local language we're born into, and master skills as di verse as playing the violin, high-jumping, and operating space shuttle cockpits. -David Eagleman, Secret Life of the Mind. A fool also is full of words,.... Or, "multiplies words. Is very talkative, says the same thing over and over again; uses an abundance of waste words, that have no meaning in them; utters every thing that comes uppermost, without any order o r judgment; affects to talk on every subject, whether he knows anything of it or not; and will engross all the conversation to himself, though of all in company the most unfit for it. -John Gill, Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible, Eccl esiastes 10:14. A consistent man believes in destiny, a capricious man in chance. -Benjamin Di sraeli A constant fidelity in small things is a great and heroic virtue. -St. Bonaven tura A constant friend is a thing hard and rare to find. -Plutarch Moderation should be used in joking. -Cicero The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas i n the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function. -F. Scot t Fitzgerald The exertion of clothing a thought in a completely new set of words increases bo th clearness of thought and mastery over words. It is the test of a solid though t that it will bear a change of clothing. -John Robert Seeley To change, and to change for the better, are two different things. -German Pro verb In abundance prepare for scarcity. -Mencius For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. -The Bible, Matthew 7:34, King James Version.