Personal Power

So here we have purposeful practice in a nutshell: Get outside your comfort zone but do it in a focused way, with clear goals, a plan for reaching those goals, and a way to monitor your progress. Oh, and figure out a way to maintain your motivation. This recipe is an excellent start for anyone who wishes to improve—but it is still just a start.
Anders Ericsson, Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise

The differences between expert performers and normal adults are not immutable, that is, due to genetically prescribed talent. Instead, these differences reflect a life-long period of deliberate effort to improve performance.
Anders Ericsson,

“What man is a man who does not make the world better?”
Balian,in the movie Kingdom of Heaven

“The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.”
John Millton. Paradise Lost

“Loving speech will rescue us. Compassionate listening will rescue us. This is a miracle performed by us, as practitioners. You have the capacity to do it. You have enough peace, enough compassion and understanding in the depth of your consciousness. You have to call on it for help… With a loving friend supporting you, it will be possible for you to begin anew and restore communication.”
Thich Nhat Hanh (from Anger: Wisdom for Cooling the Flames)

“Our ultimate freedom is the right and power to decide how anybody or anything outside ourselves will affect us”.
Stephen Covey

“I have come to the frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element.
It is my personal approach that creates the climate.
It is my daily mood that makes the weather.
I possess the tremendous power to make a life miserable or joyous.
I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration.
I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal.
In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis will be escalated or de-escalated and a person humanized or de-humanized.
If we treat people as they are, we make them worse.
If we treat people, as they ought to be, we can help them become what they are capable of being.”
Goethe

“The heart is the hub of all sacred places, go there and roam.”
Nityayanda

“What you focus on expands and what you resist, persists.”
Carl Jung

“Judging by what I have learned about men and women, I am convinced that far more idealistic aspiration exists than is ever evident. Just as the rivers we see are much less numerous than the underground streams, so the idealism that is visible is minor compared to what men and women carry in their hearts, unreleased or scarcely released. Mankind is waiting and longing for those who can accomplish the task of untying what is knotted and bringing these underground waters to the surface.”
Albert Schweitzer

“Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.”
Carl Jung

“Forgiveness is not something you do for someone else, but to free YOURSELF from the continuation of pain and anger. It is a gift to your peace of mind, your self esteem, your relationships with others, your future.”
Kenneth Cloke

“At some ideas you stand perplexed, especially at the sight of human sins, uncertain whether to combat it by force or by human love. Always decide, ‘I will combat it with man love.’ If you make up your mind about that once and for all, you can conquer the whole world. Loving humility is a terrible force; it is the strongest of all things and there is nothing like it.”
Dostoyevsky

“Here I stand, I can do no other.”
Martin Luther

“I’m looking at the man in the mirror.
I’m asking him to change his ways.
No message could have been any clearer:
If you wanna make the world a better place,
better look at yourself and make that change.”
Russ Ballard

“If there is any kindness I can show,
or any good thing I can do
to any fellow human being,
let me do it now,
and not defer or neglect it,
as I shall not pass this way again.”
William Penn

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”
Margaret Mead

“The mind creates the abyss and the heart crosses it.”
Sri Nisargadalta

“Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is most important that you do it.”
Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948)

“We must become the change we want to see.”
Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948)

“We are what we think.
All that we are arises with what we think.
With our thoughts we create the world.”
Dhammapada

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous,
Talented, and fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small doesn’t serve the world.
There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that
Other people won’t feel insecure around you.
We were born to make manifest the glory of God
That is within us.
It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone.
And as we let our light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated form our own fear,
Our presence automatically liberates others.
1994 Inaugural Speech Nelson Mandela (words attributed to Marianne Williamson)

When you are inspired by some great purpose, some extraordinary project, all your thoughts break their bounds: your mind transcends limitations, your consciousness expands in every direction, and you find yourself in a new, great and wonderful world…Dormant forces, faculties and talents become alive, and you discover yourself to be a greater person by far than you ever dreamed yourself to be.
Patanjali