Quotes by William Lyon Phelps

“If you develop the absolute sense of certainty that powerful beliefs provide, then you can get yourself to accomplish virtually anything, including those things that other people are certain are impossible.”

“Most successful men have not achieved their distinction by having some new talent or opportunity presented to them. They have developed the opportunity that was at hand.”

“Your mind, while blessed with permanent memory, is cursed with lousy recall. Written goals provide clarity. By documenting your dreams, you must think about the process of achieving them.”

“Most people give up just when theyre about to achieve success. They quit on the one yard line. They give up at the last minute of the game, one foot from a winning touchdown.”

“Nothing stops the man who desires to achieve. Every obstacle is simply a course to develop his achievement muscle. Its a strengthening of his powers of accomplishment.”

“Nature makes boys and girls lovely to look upon so they can be tolerated until they acquire some sense”

“A well-ordered life is like climbing a tower; the view halfway up is better than the view from the base, and it steadily becomes finer as the horizon expands.”

“Whenever it is possible, a boy should choose some occupation which he should do even if he did not need the money.”

“I divide all readers into two classes: Those who read to remember and those who read to forget”

“Tell a man whose house is on fire to give a moderate alarm; tell the mother to gradually extricate her babe from the fire into which it has fallen; but urge me not to use moderation.”

“A student never forgets an encouraging private word, when it is given with sincere respect and admiration.”

“I cannot explain to another the joy and the happiness I get out of teaching. It is more than a profession, an occupation, a vocation, a struggle; it is a passion, for I love to teach. ... I love to teach as a painter loves to paint, as a singer loves to sing, and as a musician loves to play. Every strong man loves to run a race.”

Those who decide to use leisure as a means of mental development, who love good music, good books, good pictures, good company, good conversation, are the happiest people in the world.

The amazing activity of the cat is delicately balanced by his capacity for relaxation. Every household should contain a cat, not only for decorative and domestic values, but because the cat in quiescence is medicinal to irritable, tense, tortured men and women.

The fear of life is the favorite disease of the twentieth century.

One appreciates that daily life is really good when one wakes from a horrible dream or when one takes the first outing after a sickness. Why not realize it now?

That daily life is really good one appreciates when one wakes from a horrible dream or when one takes the first outing after a sickness. Why not realize it now?

The happiest person is the person who thinks the most interesting thoughts.

Why is it that so many people are afraid to admit that they are happy?

If happiness truly consisted in physical ease and freedom from care then the happiest individual... would be I think an American cow.