Motivational Quotes Revisited… Yet Again

 

Pythagoras and Mae West

Any reader of this blog knows that I am prone to use quotes to emphasize points and, more so, when I am writing about motivation and self-improvement.  It might be a genetic thing.  My great Uncle Rouben Gavoor used to collect such quotes and even had a column in The Armenian Weekly, As They Saw It, in which he would share the quotes he had collected.

I wish I had asked him about this and the root of his fascination with quotes, but my interest in such developed after he passed away.  Thus, I can only speak for myself.  Where Uncle Rouben favored quotes by great statesmen and leaders of movements and countries.  My interest is more personal.  I am interested in self-improvement and continuous improvement.  Being an advocate of continuous improvement in the workplace for my entire career, it is clear that motivation is a necessary part.  It is a most necessary part at the beginning when an organization is taking its first tenuous steps in the transformation of the culture.  It is also clear that it is not sufficient, motivation is much more helpful in the beginning than in the long haul. 

If we liken this to the field of economics where that discipline is divided into macro and microeconomics.  Uncle Rouben’s was interested in quotations in the macro sense:  the world and nations.  My interest in both economics and quotations is definitely micro:  firms, households, and individuals.  My interest in quotes attributed to the famous, near famous, and the relatively unknown have become more and more micro over time.  That is simply I am at the me, myself, and I level i.e. self-improvement.  I also believe I am better at helping organizations change and improve, rather than myself. 

So, I am looking for the right motivational quotes to help myself get going and improve just about everything I do.  And to boot, I have the classic cognitive bias of believing that once found, the right motivational quote will in the flip of a switch place me immediately on the right path and keep me from ever wavering.  Heck, I should be collecting quotes on folly and delusion (insert a rolling on the floor laughing emoji here).

Like most interests, avocations, and hobbies, the internet, specifically Google and now AI, has enabled and accelerated my fascination with motivational quotes beyond anything I would have done on my own.  Websites like BrainyQuotes, A-Z Quotes and others have been amazingly helpful.  Lately, there are reels galore that collect and post the motivational wisdom of the ages with video, music, and AI narration that intensify the impact of the quotes even more.  Here is an example of quotes from one such reel I ran across in September.  Sadly, I did not copy the URL for it.  There are eight quotes though none of the quotes were attributed to who said or wrote them.  Google AI helped with the attributions:

1. Worrying is like paying a debt you don’t owe ~ Mark Twain
2. Almost nothing material is needed for a happy life for he who understood existence. ~ Marcus Aurelius
3. We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. ~ Seneca
4. No man is free that cannot control himself. ~ Pythagoras
5. True happiness is to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future.  ~ Seneca.
6. It may seem difficult at first, but all things are difficult at first. ~ Miyamoto Musashi
7. No amount of anxiety makes any difference to anything that is going to happen. ~ Alan Watts
8. Everyone must choose one of two pains: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret. ~ Jim Rohn
   

This morning, I saw this reel from The Wise Said - 9 of the smartest quotes ever said:

1. Care what other people think, and you will always be their prisoner. ~ Lao Tzu
2. It is never too late to be what you might have been. ~ George Eliot
3. Our life is what our thoughts make it. ~ Marcus Aurelius
4. Thinking is difficult, that’s why most people judge. ~ Carl Jung
5. We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. ~ Seneca
6. A fool is known by speech and a wise man by silence. ~ Pythagoras
7. If you are the smartest person in the room, then you are in the wrong room. ~ Confucius
8. The quieter you become, the more you are able to hear. ~ Rumi
9. You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough. ~ Mae West
   

Many of these are very good.  I like the quotes from Seneca, Pythagoras, Marcus Aurelius, Lao Tzu, and Mark Twain.  I wonder how Mae West made the list with this beautiful quote that can be interpreted both from a stoic and a libertine perspective. 

Lastly Jim Rohn and Miyamoto Musashi, acknowledge the reality of what I called the ‘long haul’ in any change process .  The pain and difficulty they speak of it the effort to stay the course until the desired goal or becomes a routine modus operandi displacing the old… the pain of discipline versus the pain of regret… the trade-off of what you want right now for what you want long term.  This is and has been my lifelong challenge. Per George Eliot, it is never too late to change.