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Frank Ball writing in his study

The quote library

Frankisms

Short truths, collected over a lifetime of writing and teaching. Read a few, or lose an afternoon.

Collected
1,993
  • Sometimes what appears to be a block to your goal can be merely a test of your wits, imagination, and ability to work it out. — Ray Considine

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  • Storms make trees take deeper roots. — Claude McDonald

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  • Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will. — Mahatma Gandhi

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  • Take time to deliberate. But when the time for action arrives, stop thinking and go in. — Andrew Jackson, 1767–1845

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  • Talent is overrated. Hard work and persistence will make your work better and help you go farther. — Kim Messer

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  • Thank God the public only sees the finished product. — Woody Allen

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  • The best time to move ahead is just before you are ready to move ahead. — Robert Fritz

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  • The best way to make your dreams come true is to wake up. — Paul Valéry

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  • The better you serve your followers, the more followers you will have. — Thomas Umstattd

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  • The biggest problem with making a choice is simply realizing a choice can be made. — Ray Considine

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  • The fear of death is more to be dreaded than death itself. — Publilius Syrus (First Century BC), Maxim 511

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  • The great thing in the world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving. — Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr

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  • The greater the difficulty, the greater the glory. — Cicero

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  • The greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitude. — William James

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  • The greatest failure is the failure to try. — William A. Ward

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  • The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one. — Elbert Hubbard

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  • The harder you work, the luckier you get. — Gary Player

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  • The key to having more time is doing less, and there are two paths to getting there, both of which should be used together: (1) Define a short to-do list and (2) define a not-to-do list. — Timothy Ferriss

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  • The lowest ebb is the turn of the tide. — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

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  • The man who is incapable of making a mistake is incapable of anything. — Abraham Lincoln

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  • The man who makes no mistakes does not usually make anything. — Edward J. Phelps

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  • The meaning of the Bible must be known and understood if it is to make a difference in our lives. — Ronald Reagan

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  • The most powerful weapon on earth is the human soul on fire. — Ferdinand Foch

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  • The only people who make no mistakes are dead people. I saw a man last week who had not made a mistake for four thousand years. He was a mummy in the Egyptian department of the British Museum. — H. L. Wayland

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  • The problem is not to start writing, but to keep writing and renewing inspiration. — Robert McKee

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  • The reward of a thing well done, is to have done it. — Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882), Essays: Second Series. Nominalist and Realist

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  • The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret to getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks and then starting on the first one. — Mark Twain

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  • The time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining. — John F. Kennedy

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  • The trouble with most people is they quit before they start. — Thomas Edison

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  • The way to gain a good reputation is to endeavor to be what you desire to appear. — Socrates

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  • The world is moving so fast these days that the man who says it can’t be done is generally interrupted by someone doing it. — Elbert Hubbard

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  • The worst thing in your life may contain seeds of the best. When you can see crisis as an opportunity, your life becomes not easier, but more satisfying. — Joe Kogel

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  • The Wright brothers flew right through the smoke screen of impossibility. — Charles F. Kettering

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  • There are no gains without pains. — Benjamin Franklin

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  • There are really only three types of people: those who make things happen, those who watch things happen, and those who say, What happened? — Ann Landers

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  • There is no comparison between that which is lost by not succeeding and that which is lost by not trying. — Francis Bacon

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  • There is no security in this life, only opportunity. — Douglas MacArthur

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  • There’s something ultimately unfulfilling about a promise of a “better you” that doesn’t involve pain and sacrifice. — Jeff Goins

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  • Those who bring sunshine to the lives of others cannot keep it from themselves. — James M. Barrie

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  • To be successful, you need to set yourself on fire. — Thomas Umstattd

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