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Quotes about Potential

    “The function and duty of a human being, a ‘quality’ human being, that is, is the sincere and honest development of potential and self-actualization.”

    Bruce Lee, Striking Thoughts (Page 28)

      “If you add up all the hesitation from your life… If you compile all the missed opportunities… All the things you wish you would have done or know you should have done, but didn’t… If you combine all those things together and put them into a big pile, imagine how big that pile would be. Imagine what an accumulation of unrealized potential you would see in front of you. Don’t allow that. Don’t hesitate. Go.”

      Jocko Willink, Discipline Equals Freedom (Page 133)

        “I want you to be horrified—terrified—of sitting on the sidelines and doing nothing. That is what I want you to be afraid of: waking up in six days or six weeks or six year or sixty years and being no closer to your goal… you have made no progress. That is the horror. That is the nightmare. That is what you really need to be afraid of: being stagnant.”

        Jocko Willink, Discipline Equals Freedom (Page 41)

          “If you’re always right, you’re not learning. If you’re never failing, you’re not reaching. The objective is to be right. The objective is to succeed. But if you’re always winning, you’re undershooting your potential.”

          James Clear, Blog

            “Your true self does not speak in words or banal phrases. Its voice comes from deep within you, from the substrata or your psyche, from something embedded physically within you. It emanates from your uniqueness, and it communicates through sensations and powerful desires that seem to transcend you. You cannot ultimately understand why you are drawn to certain activities or forms of knowledge. This cannot really be verbalized or explained. It is simply a fact of nature.”

            Robert Greene, The Daily Laws (Page 115)

              “You have everything in you that Buddha has, that Christ has. You’ve got it all. But only when you start to acknowledge it is it going to get interesting. Your problem is you’re afraid to acknowledge your own beauty. You’re too busy holding on to your own unworthiness. You’d rather be a schnook sitting before some great man. That fits in more with who you think you are. Well, enough already. I sit before you and I look and I see your beauty, even if you don’t.”

              Ram Dass, Grist For the Mill, via Sunbeams (Page 130)

                “Big, blown-out fantasies about our lives stem from the pain of our unrealized potential, but true dreams are a reality we are willing to work for, fight for, stay up late for—this is a future that is within our reach.”

                Debbie Ford, The Shadow Effect (Page 85)

                  “The tragedy of life is often not in our failure, but rather in our complacency; not in our doing too much, but rather in our doing too little; not in our living above our ability, but rather in our living below our capacities.”

                  Benjamin E. Mays

                    “Argue for your limitations, and sure enough, they’re yours.”

                    Richard Bach, via Sunbeams (Page 54) (Read Matt’s Blog on this quote)

                      “We underestimate our capabilities just as much and just as dangerously as we overestimate other abilities. Cultivate the ability to judge yourself accurately and honestly. Look inward to discern what you’re capable of and what it will take to unlock that potential.”

                      Ryan Holiday, The Daily Stoic (Page 72)

                        “In your life you’ve faced obstacles, inner and outer, that have prevented you from becoming the person you were ‘meant to be’ or ‘are capable of being’ and that is what we are going to recover. That’s why we call this process Recovery; we recover the ‘you’ that you were meant to be.”

                        Russell Brand, Recovery (Page 42)

                          “If the Egyptians had so capably built their temples and pyramids without the benefit of modern architectural tools, then I, the daughter of this great civilization, must be capable of more than I knew. We all are. Anything we can conceive of can be built. Perhaps not through our efforts alone, but also by the generations of dreamers whose feet will rest on our shoulders.”

                          Alicia Keys, More Myself (Page 105)