Quotes About Self-improvement

Jealousy is almost like a shadow of love. If we can grow our love, it takes over the whole energy of jealousy and transforms it into love. It is an alchemical change.

it's a point of pride whenever you can point to the ways in which you're avoiding your progenitor's defective character. I'm not like him becomes your mantra

So, attend carefully to your posture. Quit drooping and hunching around. Speak your mind. Put your desires forward, as if you had a right to them—at least the same right as others. Walk tall and gaze forthrightly ahead. Dare to be dangerous. Encourage the serotonin to flow plentifully through the neural pathways desperate for its calming influence.

RULE 4 COMPARE YOURSELF TO WHO YOU WERE YESTERDAY, NOT TO WHO SOMEONE ELSE IS TODAY

Always place your becoming above your current being.

It is my firm belief that the best way to fix the world—a handyman's dream, if ever there was one—is to fix yourself,

The secret to your existence is right in front of you. It manifests itself as all those things you know you should do, but are avoiding.

You are by no means only what you already know. You are also all that which you could know, if you only would. Thus, you should never sacrifice what you could be for what you are. You should never give up the better that resides within for the security you already have—and certainly not when you have already caught a glimpse, an undeniable glimpse, of something beyond.

Worthlessness is the default condition.

you should never sacrifice what you could be for what you are.

Treat yourself like you would someone you're responsible for helping.

Michelangelo's great perfect marble David cries out to its observer: "You could be more than you are.

Set your ambitions, even if you are uncertain about what they should be. The better ambitions have to do with the development of character and ability, rather than status and power.

When someone claims to be acting from the highest principles, for the good of others, there is no reason to assume that the person's motives are genuine. People motivated to make things better usually aren't concerned with changing other people—or, if they are, they take responsibility for making the same changes to themselves (and first).

You may come to ask yourself, "What should I do today?" in a manner that means "How could I use my time to make things better, instead of worse?

If you surround yourself with people who support your upward aim, they will not tolerate your cynicism and destructiveness. They will instead encourage you when you do good for yourself and others and punish you carefully when you do not.

You're not perfect just the way you are. You could be better!

begin by treating yourself as if you were someone you were responsible for helping.

Don't blame capitalism, the radical left, or the iniquity of your enemies. Don't reorganize the state until you have ordered your own experience. Have some humility. If you cannot bring peace to your household, how dare you try to rule a city?

if one wants to live a full life, one first sets one's own house in order;

Thus, you should never sacrifice what you could be for what you are.

But only you know the full range of your secret transgressions, insufficiencies and inadequacies. No one is more familiar than you with all the ways your mind and body are flawed. No one has more reason to hold you in contempt, to see you as pathetic—and by withholding something that might do you good, you can punish yourself for all your failings. A dog, a harmless, innocent, unselfconscious dog, is clearly more deserving.

When you decide to learn about your faults so that they can be rectified, you open a line of communication with the source of all revelatory thought. Maybe that's the same thing as consulting your conscience. Maybe that's the same thing, in some manner, as a discussion with God.

each individual has ultimate responsibility to bear; that if one wants to live a full life, one first sets one's own house in order; and only then can one sensibly aim to take on bigger responsibilities.