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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
  • To change, you have to stop doing what you know how to do—and start doing something you don’t know how to do. — Ray Considine

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  • Too many people miss the silver lining because they’re expecting gold. — Maurice Scitter

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  • Trouble starts when we think too big. — Jane Anne Staw

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  • Until you’ve been in the battle, don’t tell me what the war is all about. — Dennis Hensley

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  • Use what talents you possess. The woods would be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang best. — Henry Van Dyke

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  • Watch for big problems. They disguise big opportunities. — H. Jackson Brown Jr

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  • We all have possibilities we don’t know about. We can do things we don’t even dream we can do. — Dale Carnegie

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  • We can enrich ourselves, thereby enhancing our ability to continue to enrich others. We might as well get good at it. — Alan Weiss

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  • We don’t have time for everything. — Thomas Harris

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  • We don’t know who we are until we can see what we can do. — Martha Grimes

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  • We have to knock on a lot of wrong doors to find the right one. — Terry Burns

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  • We must not sit still and look for miracles. — John Eliot

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  • Well begun is half done. — Aristotle

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  • What costs little is valued less. — Miguel de Cervantes

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  • What we have to learn to do is lean into the things that hold us back, to move through the pain and push forward. — Jeff Goins

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  • What you did years ago doesn’t matter. What matters is what you do today. — Jeff Goins

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  • When good men die, their goodness does not perish. — Euripedes

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  • When it is dark enough, men see the stars. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

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  • When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us. — Alexander Graham Bell

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  • When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us. — Helen Keller

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  • When opportunity knocks, invite it to stay for dinner. — H. Jackson Brown Jr

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  • When the passion goes away, it’s the practice that sustains us. — Jeff Goins

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  • When there is a hill to climb, don’t think that waiting will make it smaller. — H. Jackson Brown Jr

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  • When we constantly seek our own happiness, we’re rarely satisfied. — Jeff Goins

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  • When we grow old, there can only be one regret—not to have given enough of ourselves. — Eleonora Duse

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  • When we lose sight of our objectives, we work out the resulting anxiety by redoubling our efforts. We are not getting anywhere, but we are getting there twice as fast. — Thomas Harris

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  • When you get to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on. — Franklin Delano Roosevelt

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  • When you reach that threshold of discomfort, you need to convert it to positive energy, positive thoughts, and positive overdrive. — Steven Ungerleider

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  • When your actions are based on obligation, it is very hard to determine what truly matters to you. — Robert Fritz

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  • Wherever we look upon this earth, the opportunities take shape within the problems. — Nelson Rockefeller, 1908–1979

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  • Whoever I am, or whatever I am doing, some kind of excellence is within my reach. — John W. Gardner

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  • Working really hard is what successful people do. — Malcolm Gladwell, author

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  • Worry is a malfunction of the mind. It is an excuse to do nothing rather than something. — Ray Considine

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  • Yesterday is a canceled check. Tomorrow is a promissory note. Today is ready cash—use it. — Kay Lyons

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  • You become excellent by practice. — Sandra Glahn, editor in chief of Kindred Spirit magazine

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  • You can’t find your life’s purpose if you aren’t willing to embrace discomfort and join others in their suffering. — Jeff Goins

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  • You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club. — Jack London

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  • You don’t always win your battles, but it’s good to know you fought. — Marjorie Holmes

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  • You have to be willing to take enormous risks to reap enormous rewards. — Judith Barrington

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  • You master mathematics if you are willing to try. … Success is a function of persistence and doggedness and the willingness to work hard for twenty-two minutes to make sense of something that most people would give up on after thirty seconds. — Malcolm Gladwell, author

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