Posts Tagged ‘Great Quote Monday’
Great Quote Monday — Lee Iacocca
'By the time I finish this stogie, you better have dried those tears and gotten yourself a plan.'
“Boys, there ain’t no free lunches in this country. And don’t go spending your whole life commiserating that you got the raw deals. You’ve got to say, ”I think that if I keep working at this and want it bad enough I can have it.” It’s called perseverance.”
- Attributed to Lee Iacocca: businessman, author, former CEO of Chrysler, former president of Ford, and ‘Father of the Mustang’
- Matthew Porter
Great Quote Monday — Dr. Jonas Salk
'Hey, I cured polio. What's say we try these bottles of Scotch I've been saving?'
Today marks the 55th anniversary of Dr. Jonas Salk’s polio vaccine being declared safe and effective. I know that had I created the vaccine, I would have gone to every high school reunion: ‘You say you made VP, huh? That’s just terrific. Me? I cured an epidemic that annually killed thousands and crippled tens of thousands. But hey, good for you, right?’
In honor of Dr. Salk, here’s a syringeful of wisdom from the man who pimp-slapped polio…
“I feel that the greatest reward for doing is the opportunity to do more.”
-Dr. Jonas Salk, upon receiving the Congressional Medal for Distinguished Civilian Achievement (April 23, 1956)
- Matthew Porter
Great Quote Monday — J.K. Rowling
“It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all – in which case, you fail by default.”
- J.K. Rowling
2008 Harvard commencement speech
- Matthew Porter
Great Quote Monday — Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein
Fantastic quote for you this morning in honor of Holy Week:
“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.”
- Albert Einstein in Mein Weltbild (1931)
- Matthew Porter
Great Quote Monday — Zig Ziglar
Zig Ziglar
An empowering quote from Zig Ziglar to start your week. If you’re the one who needed to read this, please take it to heart…
“…failure is an event, it is not a person — yesterday ended last night.”
- Zig Ziglar
See You At The Top
Great Quote Monday — William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare: Playwright, Poet, and Victim of Male Pattern Baldness
In honor of William Shakespeare– who correctly stated that ‘brevity is the soul of wit’– we’ll get right to today’s Great Quote Monday quote:
“Sweet are the uses of adversity…”
Spoken by Duke Senior in As You Like It, Act II, Scene i
- William Shakespeare
Do you agree that the uses of adversity are sweet? Or is that just some fluffy crap said by folks who are not facing adversity themselves? Sound off by leaving a reply.
- Matthew Porter
Great Quote Monday — T.E. Lawrence
T.E. Lawrence (1915)
Beautiful quote for you today from T.E. Lawrence, the man whose life inspired one of my all-time favorite films, the David Lean masterpiece Lawrence of Arabia:
“All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dreams with open eyes, to make it possible. This I did.”
Introductory Chapter, Seven Pillars of Wisdom (1922)
Do you want to be a ‘dreamer of the day’? Do you want to be dangerous? Man, I sure do. So what’s stopping us?
Nothing.
-Matthew Porter
Great Quote Monday — Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill isn't mad, he's just considering your criticism.
As a contrast to Teddy Roosevelt’s quote last week, I bring you another formidable world leader expounding on the significance of criticism.
This week’s Great Quote Monday quote is attributed to Winston Churchill though, despite some considerable legwork, I have yet to discover the original context for it. If and when I do, I’ll be sure to report back.
In the meantime, a few words (ostensibly) from Mr. Churchill:
“Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfills the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things.”
- Winston Churchill
So what do you think?
Is the critic a bench-sitting naysayer whose words ring hollow because they have no skin in the game, as per Teddy Roosevelt? Or is the critic a useful annoyance whose big-picture perspective can call our attention to previously unaddressed problems, as per Winston Churchill?
Or are they both full of it?
Drop a reply below and let us know what you think. Me? What do I think about the importance and role of criticism? Hit me with a critique and we’ll see…
- Matthew Porter
Great Quote Monday — Teddy Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt: Our 26th President and Master of the Mustache
President Teddy Roosevelt’s political leanings may have left something to be desired (and by ’something’, I mean ‘a lot’). However, I’m not one to write folks off if their views don’t align perfectly with my own. Okay, okay… there are some exceptions to that rule. If, for example, it was discovered that Hitler actually coined the phrase ‘I’d like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony,’ I still wouldn’t post it for Great Quote Monday.
So, on to this week’s Great Quote, a powerful, rousing charge that I hope gets you pumped up for the week ahead:
“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 who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for 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 he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.
Theodore Roosevelt
Citizenship in the Republic, a speech at the Sorbonne, Paris
April 23, 1910
- Matthew Porter
Great Quote Monday — John (x2)
A Great Quote Monday two-fer, in honor of Valentine’s Day…
“God is love.”
- I John 4:16b
“Love is all you need.”
- John Lennon
- Matthew Porter
