Introduction

• I’ve loved quotes for a long time and have been collecting quotes that have made an impression on me for at least the last 5 years. I agree with Adam Grant when he said of quotes and aphorisms, “they’re memorable and They give meaning and direction. They spur new thoughts or new actions—or remind us to revisit old ones.”
• The quotes we love and remember are those that we feel speak directly to us, they transcend the individual context in which we see them and provide us a nugget of insight of knowledge we can take forward and apply more broadly to other aspects of our lives.
• The construction of the quote also plays a big part on which quotes last for generations while others, which have the same core message or meaning, are quickly forgotten. For example, a study in 2000 found that people preferred rhyming quotes.
• While I’ve been collecting quotes for a number of years, it wasn’t until recently that I decided to organise them into different themes. The primary driver for doing this was I realised that because my list was so long there were quotes which I’d forgotten about, but when I rediscovered them still strongly resonated with me. Therefore, I thought that grouping the quotes into themes would (a) give me the opportunity to revisit all the quotes I’d captured and (b) help me find the ‘right’ quote I need depending on the motivation, meaning and direction I need in a particular moment.
• After a lot of thinking and testing different ways to categorise the quotes, I came up with the following 7 themes. You won’t be surprised that these themes align closely – although not directly – with the topics of this blog.
  1. To Live A Good Life
  2. Success
  3. Health & Nutrition
  4. Investing & Money
  5. Appreciation & Acceptance
  6. Action & Ownership
  7. Miscellaneous

• I will post a blog on each of the above themes in a 7 part series on ‘My Favourite Quotes’. This is the sixth blog post in this series focused on ‘Action & Ownership’. For the rest of the posts in the series, please click on the relevant hyperlink above. There is no requirement to read the series in order, just dive into the area which appeals most to you right now.
• You’ll notice when reading the series that each theme has a number of topics, this helps me, and will hopefully help you, find the quotes which best apply to what you’re searching for.
• There is no particular order to the quotes within the themes or topics, I considered ranking the quotes within topics but realised that would be an impossible task. For me, it’s about having a catalogue of quotes available to support me, different quotes will be more applicable in some moments than others.
• I am very aware of how often quotes are misattributed. It’s almost as if when people are in doubt of the attribution of a quote, they assign it to Einstein, Twain, Shakespeare or Edison. I have done my best to attribute quotes correctly, however I cannot be 100% certain, so I apologise in advance of any misattributions.
• I hope you find this series useful, and as a collector of quotations, please include any quotes you love in the comments!

Top Quotes for me right now on Action & Ownership

Take Ownership

• ‘If it is to be, it’s up to me.’ — Coach George Raveling
• ‘There are only two things that you have to do in life: You have to die, and you have to live until you die. The rest is up to you.’ – Unknown
• ‘Much is not dared because it seems hard; much seems hard only because it is not dared’ – Prince Wenzel Anton Von Kaunitz

Take Accountability

• ‘Excuses are a form of envy. They’re a way to dodge responsibility as a means of explaining why someone else has something you don’t. They’re a way of avoiding accountability by shifting blame.’ – Unknown
• ‘However, mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not shun it and call it hard names…The fault-finder will find faults even in paradise.’ – Henry David Thoreau in ‘Walden’
• ‘The most courageous decision that you can make each day is to be in a good mood.’ – Voltaire
• ‘And if you stop complaining and asking for what you never will get, you will have a good life.’ – Robert Jordan, main character in Ernest Hemmingways ‘For Whom the Bell Tolls’
• ‘Boredom is simply a lack of attention’ – Sam Harris
• ‘Regret is past tense decision making. Eliminate complaining to minimise regret’ – Tim Ferriss
• ‘Diversity in counsel, unity in command.’ – Cyrus the Great

Take Action

• ‘Action may not always bring happiness, but there is no happiness without action’ – Benjamin Disraeli
• ‘Today is only one day in all the days that will ever be. But what will happen in all the other days that ever come can depend on what you do today.’ – Ernest Hemingway
• ‘Knowledge has got to be converted to decision/action otherwise it’s worth less’ – Jim Rone
• ‘As it is said in the Bhagavad Gita, ”You are only entitled to the action, never to its fruits.” Better, don’t even need the fruits because the action is the only part that doesn’t really suck.’ – Ryan Holiday
• ‘Vision without execution is hallucination’ – Thomas Edison

Work Hard, but Smart

• ‘I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat’ – Winston Churchill
• ‘I’m a great believer in luck. The harder I work, the more of it I seem to have.’ – F. L. Emerson
• ‘Discipline is just remembering what you want’ – David Campbell
• ‘Be steady and well-ordered in your life so that you can be fierce and original in your work.’ – Gustave Flaubert
• ‘True endurance comes from motivation and belief in what you’re doing’ – Neil Strauss

Always Create Value

• ‘Create more value than you capture.’ – Tim O’Reilly
• ‘Try not to become a man of success, but a man of value. Look around at how people want to get more out of life than they put in. A man of value will give more than he receives. Be creative, but make sure that what you create is not a curse for mankind.’ – Albert Einstein
• ‘The secret to success… is not secret. It’s called work your ass off and find a way to add more value to people’s lives than anyone else does!’ – Tony Robbins
• ‘Creating value is an inherently cooperative process, capturing value is inherently competitive’ – Barry Nalebuff

Importance of perspective

• ‘If you believe it will work out, you’ll see opportunities, if you believe it won’t you will see obstacles’ – Wayne Dyer
• ‘Never let a good crisis go to waste’ – Winston Churchill
• ‘Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.’ – Dr Seuss
• ‘You are the average of the 5 people you surround yourself with. Don’t join an easy crowd.’ – Jim Cohn
• ‘What you aim at determines what you see.’ –  Jordan B Peterson
• ‘If you set your goals ridiculously high and it’s a failure, you will fail above everyone else’s success.’ – James Cameron

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