To be what we are,
by Baruch Spinoza

To be what we are,
and to become what we are capable of becoming,
is the only end in life.
- Baruch Spinoza

Related topics: Values

We must become the change we wish to see in the world.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

Appreciate again and again, freshly and naively,
the basic goods of life, with awe,
pleasure, wonder and even ecstasy,
however stale these experiences may have become to others.
- Abraham Maslow

The jump is so frightening
between where I am,
and where I want to be.
Because of all I may become,
I will close my eyes and leap.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

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Thank you for joining me on this journey we call life,
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent
about things that matter.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.
- e. e. cummings

What we think, we become.
All that we are arises with our thoughts.
With our thoughts, we make the world.
- The Buddha

If I try to be like him, who will be like me?
- Yiddish proverb

Let today be the day that you choose
to become your own greatest Hero.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Success comes from knowing that
you did your best to become the best
that you are capable of becoming.
- John Wooden

Only when life is difficult,
are we challenged to become our greatest selves.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

How you respond to the challenge in the second half
will determine what you become after the game,
whether you are a winner or a loser.
- Lou Holtz

Pay attention to rainbows, and snowflakes,
butterflies and the songs of birds,
the crash of storm-driven waves
and the mirror-surface of a quiet pond.
Let the depths of nature become a part of your innermost being.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

When we blindly adopt a religion,
a political system, a literary dogma,
we become automatons. We cease to grow.
- Anais Nin

Become more and more innocent,
less knowledgeable and more childlike.
Take life as fun -
because that's precisely what it is!
- Osho

Become "a lover of what is."
- Byron Katie

The highest reward for a person's toil
is not what they get for it,
but what they become by it.
- John Ruskin

If you can dream it, you can become it.
- William Arthur Ward

What we think, we become.
- The Buddha

Dare to dream of your great success.
Become intimate with those things
which deeply motivate you
and regularly work toward
the realization of that mission.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

What you get by achieving your goals is not as important
as what you become by achieving your goals.
- Henry David Thoreau

You will become as small as your controlling desire;
as great as your dominant aspiration.
- James Allen

The only way to deal with an unfree world
is to become so absolutely free
that your very existence is an act of rebellion.
- Albert Camus

When I let go of what I am,
I become what I might be.
- Lao Tzu

If you can imagine it, you can achieve it.
If you can dream it, you can become it.
- William Arthur Ward

If I am happy in spite of my deprivations,
if my happiness is so deep that it is a faith,
so thoughtful that it becomes a philosophy of life.
If, in short, I am an optimist,
my testimony to the creed of optimism is worth hearing.
- Helen Keller
...
Helen Keller (1880-1968) overcame being both deaf and blind
to become a famous author, lecturer, and activist
for women's suffrage, workers' rights, and ending war.

An error does not become truth
by reason of multiplied propagation,
nor does truth become error because nobody sees it.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

Try not to become a man of success,
but rather try to become a man of value.
- Albert Einstein

What you are is God's gift to you:
what you become is your gift to god.
- Anthony Dalla Villa

Let our advance worrying become advance thinking and planning.
- Winston Churchill

No one has ever become poor by giving.
- Anne Frank

When any situation arises which tempts you to become disturbed,
say: "There is another way of looking at this."
- A Course In Miracles

By respect for life we become religious in a way
that is elementary, profound and alive.
- Albert Schweitzer

It is never too late to become what you might have been.
- George Eliot

The mind is everything.
What you think you become.
- The Buddha

When the vast cathedral of our being
becomes a sanctuary for all creation,
we become the face of God.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

The moment we want to believe something,
we suddenly see all the arguments for it,
and become blind to the arguments against it.
- George Bernard Shaw

The things that have acquired unity are these:
Heaven by unity has become clear;
Earth by unity has become steady;
The Spirit by unity has become spiritual;
The Valley by unity has become full;
All things by unity have come into existence.
- Lao Tzu

You become what you think about.
- Earl Nightingale

Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition -
they somehow already know what you truly want to become.
- Steve Jobs

I have three precious things which I hold fast and prize.
The first is gentleness;
the second is frugality;
the third is humility, which keeps me from putting myself before others.
Be gentle and you can be bold;
be frugal and you can be generous;
avoid putting yourself before others
and you can become a leader among men.
- Lao Tzu

You can never really live anyone else's life,
not even your child's.
The influence you exert is through your own life,
and what you've become yourself.
- Eleanor Roosevelt

USE this time of fresh beginnings.
Use it as an impetus, the force or energy toward change.
Become stronger, a better leader, more focused in your thoughts.
Exert more influence over your dreams
by bringing them closer to your thoughts, every day.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

Be careful the friends you choose -
for you will become like them.
- W. Clement Stone

I have become my own version of an optimist.
If I can't make it through one door,
I'll go through another door - or I'll make a door.
Something terrific will come no matter how dark the present.
- Rabindranath Tagore

Your visions will become clear only
when you can look into your own heart.
Who looks outside, dreams;
who looks inside, awakes.
- Carl Jung

By having a reverence for life,
we enter into a spiritual relation with the world.
By practicing reverence for life we become good, deep, and alive.
- Albert Schweitzer

You must not lose faith in humanity.
Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty,
the ocean does not become dirty.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

I become happy when I choose to accept and love all of life.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions.
Small people always do that,
but the really great make you feel that
you, too, can become great.
- Mark Twain

As long as any adult thinks that he,
like the parents and teachers of old,
can become introspective,
invoking his own youth to understand
the youth before him,
he is lost.
- Margaret Mead

May Your Most Beautiful Dreams Become Your Reality.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

The moment you become miserly you are closed
to the basic phenomenon of life: expansion, sharing.
The moment you start clinging to things,
you have missed the target.
Because things are not the target,
you, your innermost being, is the target -
not a beautiful house, but a beautiful you;
not much money, but a rich you;
not many things, but an open being,
available to millions of things.
- Osho

We become not a melting pot but a beautiful mosaic.
Different people, different beliefs,
different yearnings, different hopes, different dreams.
- Jimmy Carter

I am not what happened to me,
I am what I choose to become.
- Carl Jung

It is not what we get.
But who we become, what we contribute...
that gives meaning to our lives.
- Tony Robbins

Consider being more acceptive of your partner's behaviors.
It is unlikely that they are intentionally aggravating you.
Almost always, they are just doing what they think they should do.
Try setting aside your own rules for how they should behave,
and adopt a live-and-let-live attitude.
Your relationship will become stronger and happier if you do.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Great people are those who make others feel
that they, too, can become great.
- Mark Twain

One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light,
but by making the darkness conscious.
- Carl Jung

When you find peace within yourself,
you become the kind of person who can live at peace with others.
- Peace Pilgrim

If your actions inspire others to dream more,
learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.
- John Quincy Adams

The most important outcome of education
is to help students become independent of formal education.
- Paul E. Gray

We are shaped by our thoughts;
we become what we think.
When the mind is pure, joy follows
like a shadow that never leaves.
- The Buddha

He who would pass his declining years with honor and comfort,
should, when young, consider that he may one day become old,
and remember when he is old, that he has once been young.
- Joseph Addison

In a relationship, when does the art of compromise become compromising?
- Sarah Jessica Parker

The important thing is this: to be able, at any moment,
to sacrifice what we are for what we could become.
- Charles Du Bos (1882-1939), from his book Approximations (1922)
(not Charles DuBois or Maharishi Mahesh Yogi)

Get the habit of analysis -
analysis will in time enable synthesis
to become your habit of mind.
- Frank Lloyd Wright

The whole secret of existence is to have no fear.
Never fear what will become of you, depend on no one.
Only the moment you reject all help are you freed.
- The Buddha

When you become centered, suddenly there is great freedom
because you know you are not the mind and you are not the body.
- Osho

Heaven is within us, and we experience it
to the degree that we become conscious of it.
- Ernest Holmes

Self-respect is often mistaken for arrogance
when in reality it is the opposite.
When we can recognize all our good qualities
as well as or faults with neutrality,
we can start to appreciate ourselves
as we would a dear friend
and experience the comfortable inner glow of respect.
To embrace the journey towards our full potential
we need to become our own loving teacher and coach.
Spurring ourselves on to become better human beings,
we develop true regard for ourselves,
and our life will become sacred.
- Osho

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May the world be kind to you, and may your own thoughts be gentle upon yourself.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie