Tag Archives: Napoleon Hill

Make Your Own Bookmarks

Deep Thoughts and Musings, , ,

If you almost always have a book with you, you probably treasure a good bookmark.  They can be a really enjoyable part of your whole reading experience.

I started making bookmarks as gifts.  I wanted to share my favorite quotes.  Most of the short quotes I love become mantras, well, short-term mantras.  I repeat them over and over because they seem to apply to every situation in my life.

For example: ” You only see what you’re looking for and you only look for what you know.””  It’s amazing to me how many ways that applies to every facet of my life.  Then, I get a new one.  Recently, it’s:  “It takes ten times longer to put yourself together than it does to fall apart.”

One of my long time mantras is “Stand on your own two feet” akin to Napoleon Hill’s admonition, “Do your own thinking on all occasions.  The fact that the human beings are given complete control over nothing save the power to think their own thoughts is laden with significance.”  A little too long to be one of my mantras.  But I love reading it often because it’s on one of my bookmarks.

christmas 001

I am typically into DIY projects.  The first time I read Napoleon Hill’s words:  “It takes half your life before you discover life is a do-it-yourself project”, I laughed out loud.  I couldn’t help myself.  It’s so obvious when you think about it.

Consider the possibilities.  Make your own bookmarks and share them with me.  I need some thought provoking new ideas.

Magic Is Believing In Yourself

Deep Thoughts and Musings, , , , , , , , ,

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe is quoted as saying ”  Magic is believing in yourself.  If you can do that, you can make anything happen.”

Through the years, I’ve read lots of wonderful, uplifting quotes about belief.  Some had to do with religion, others alchemy and even science.  I’ve read them and pondered the basis of my beliefs.  Most of them have been handed down through my english, swedish and irish ancestors.

My Mom and Dad very carefully taught me what they had been taught.  And I believed.  I believed not only them but also my teachers in school and church.  For that matter, I believed what every authority figure in my life had to say.

I do have to admit that many of these people are great in my eyes.  My english teacher in high school inspired my love of words and books.  My seminary teacher, a couple of college professors and several art teachers achieved a measure of success  in their own lives and inspired my love of learning.  However, as I’ve grown older and become aware of them as human beings with frailties, I realize that all they could give me was their own best guess.

I accepted the values of others verbatim.  What does that say about my intuition and judgement?  It would have made more sense to accept them as input, accumulate them, weigh them against what I saw in my life around me and come to my own conclusions.  Because, as I look back, there was a lot of “do as I say, not as I do” going on.

the thinker and yellow roses 009

I love the quote from Napoleon Hill:  “Do your own thinking on all occasions.  The fact that the human beings are given complete control over nothing save the power to think their own thoughts is laden with significance.”

This sculpture, The Thinker, by Auguste Rodin is a image of a man thinking…..lost in thought.  His muscular body suggests a great capacity for action. It was commissioned to be part of an intricate monument:  The Gates of Hell.  I like to think he was contemplating his beliefs:  which values are worth living for and then what was he going to do about it.

For years I made resolutions in the spirit of  ringing in  the New Year.  Some I kept longer than others, but for the most part, they were quickly forgotten.

I asked my husband if he planned to make any this year.  Not surprisingly, he said no.  But then he added that he makes resolutions almost every day and that as he reaches goals or milestones toward goals, they invariably spawn new ones.  It’s an ongoing process for him that has evolved over the years.  He is a thinker and a doer.

So, I’ve come up with this:  I resolve to learn more, to think more and to do more in 2015!   Let’s make MAGIC!  Let’s learn to BELIEVE IN OURSELVES!