Our “life push” and evolution

Anthony Robbins - American author, coach, motivational speaker, and philanthropist 

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

Zen saying

No seed ever sees the flower.

Plato - Athenian philosopher

He who is not a good servant will not be a good master.

Anne Frank - German-Dutch diarist of Jewish origin

How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.

William James - American philosopher and psychologist 

The great use of life is to spend it for something that will outlast it.

Peter Strople - Business strategist

Legacy is not leaving something for people. It’s leaving something in people.

Wendell Berry - American novelist, poet, essayist, environmental activist, cultural critic, and farmer

It is not from ourselves that we learn to be better than we are.

Eric Maisel - American psychotherapist, teacher, coach, author and atheist

Life is too short not to create, not to love, and not to lend a helping hand to our brothers and sisters. 

Tom Rath - American consultant on employee engagement, strengths, and wellbeing, and author

Perhaps the ultimate test of a leader is not what you are able to do in the here and now - but instead what continues to grow long after you're gone.

Darren Hardy - American author, keynote speaker, advisor, and former publisher of SUCCESS magazine

It's not the big things that add up in the end; it's the hundreds, thousands, or millions of little things that separate the ordinary from the extraordinary.

Gay Hendricks - Psychologist, writer, and teacher in the field of personal growth, relationships, and body intelligence

Wherever your path takes you, may all your deathbed wishes come true, and may you celebrate each and every one of them many long years before your final breath.

Joseph Campbell - American professor of literature at Sarah Lawrence College who worked in comparative mythology and comparative religion

The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are.

T. Harv Eker - Author, businessman and motivational speaker known for his theories on wealth and motivation

The purpose of our lives is to add value to the people of this generation and those that follow.

Marci Shimoff - Celebrated transformational leader and motivational expert

We're all here to live a fabulous life... a life of love, truth, and joy.We have the power to wake up to that. We have the power to say "I'm not just here to survive, I'm here to live the greatest life that can be lived".

Viktor Frankl - Austrian neurologist, psychiatrist, philosopher, author, and Holocaust survivor.

What is to give light must endure burning.

Marcus Aurelius - Roman emperor from 161 to 180 and a Stoic philosopher

It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.

Seneca - Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, dramatist, and—in one work—satirist from the Silver Age of Latin literature

As is a tale, so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters.

Atul Gawande - American surgeon, writer, and public health researcher

Our ultimate goal, after all, is not a good death but a good life to the very end.

Mary-Elaine Jacobsen - Former Chief Psychologist for the Amherst Wilder Foundation, a highly-regarded organization with programs for behavior-disordered children, therapeutic foster care, home and school counseling, and child psychiatry

Gifted people cannot escape a sense of calling, a mandate to put their abilities to the test of time and constructive purpose. This is the true legacy of giftedness, the sense of responsibility to leave something valuable behind.

Gautama Buddha - Philosopher, mendicant, meditator, spiritual teacher, and religious leader who lived in ancient India

Those who have come to be, those who will be: All will go, leaving the body behind. The skillful person, realizing the loss of all, should live the holy life ardently.

Carlos Castaneda - American author. Starting with The Teachings of Don Juan in 1968, Castaneda wrote a series of books that describe his training in shamanism, particularly with a group whose lineage descended from the Toltecs

When you need an answer, look over your left shoulder and ask your death.

Michael Roach - American non-traditional teacher of Tibetan Buddhism. Ordained as a Gelugpa monk, he was the first American to receive the Geshe degree at Sera Monastery in Tibet

I’m going to die tonight. What would be the best thing to do with the rest of my time?

Anna Eleanor Roosevelt - American political figure, diplomat and activist. She served as the First Lady of the United States

Happiness is not a goal...it's a by-product of a life well lived.

Todd Henry - Author, international speaker, consultant, and advisor

The most valuable land in the world is the graveyard. In the graveyard are buried all of the unwritten novels, never-launched businesses, unreconciled relationships, and all of the other things that people thought, ‘I’ll get around to that tomorrow.’ One day, however, their tomorrows ran.

Gregg Krech - Executive Director of the ToDo Institute, a Naikan education and retreat center near Middlebury, Vermont

And when you are dying, you may have a chance to reflect on your life and the legacy you are leaving behind. You created that legacy during the past day. You are creating that legacy at this very moment. What will you leave behind? What will you create that will outlive you? How many hearts and minds will be touched by your deeds? Use your precious moments wisely. Do what you came here to do. “To.”

Maya Angelou - American poet, memoirist, and civil rights activist

If you’re going to live, leave a legacy. Make a mark on the world that can't be erased.

Ryan Holiday - American marketer and author. He is the former director of marketing for American Apparel and a media columnist and editor-at-large for the New York Observer

We forget: In life, it doesn’t matter what happens to you or where you came from. It matters what you do with what happens and what you’ve been given.

Ralph Waldo Emerson - American essayist, lecturer, philosopher, abolitionist and poet who led the transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century

The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.

Stephen R. Covey - American educator, author, businessman, and keynote speaker. His most popular book is The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

To begin with the end in mind means to start with a clear understanding of your destination. It means to know where you’re going so that you better understand where you are now and so that the steps you take are always in the right direction.

Greek Proverb

Society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.

Steve Chandler - Author of 30 books that have been translated into over 25 languages. His personal success coaching, public speaking and business consulting have been used by CEOs, top professionals, major universities, and over 30 Fortune 500 companies

Fatigue, paradoxically, is almost always a result of living a life of too little action.

Michael J. Gelb - American non-fiction author, executive coach and management consultant. He is a senior fellow at the Center for Humanistic Management and member of the advisory board for Leading People and Organizations at the Fordham University Gabelli School of Business

True humility emerges from a sense of wonder and awe. It’s an appreciation that our time on earth is limited but that there’s something timeless at the core of every being. Embracing humility liberates us from the egotism that drives both perfectionism and self-sabotage, opening us to a deeper experience of self-worth.

Pierre Hadot - French philosopher and historian of philosophy specializing in ancient philosophy, particularly Neoplatonism

From the point of view of the imminence of death, one thing counts, and one alone: to strive always to have the essential rules of life present in one’s mind, and to keep placing oneself in the fundamental disposition of the philosopher, which consists essentially in controlling one’s inner discourse, in doing only that which is of benefit to the human community, and in accepting the events brought to us by the course of the Nature of the All.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca - Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, dramatist, and in one work, satirist, from the post-Augustan age of Latin literature. Seneca was born in Cordoba in Hispania, and raised in Rome, where he was trained in rhetoric and philosophy

It is not that we have so little time but that we lose so much. ... The life we receive is not short but we make it so; we are not ill provided but use what we have wastefully.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca - Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, dramatist, and in one work, satirist, from the post-Augustan age of Latin literature. Seneca was born in Cordoba in Hispania, and raised in Rome, where he was trained in rhetoric and philosophy

Often a very old man has no other proof of his long life than his age.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca - Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, dramatist, and in one work, satirist, from the post-Augustan age of Latin literature. Seneca was born in Cordoba in Hispania, and raised in Rome, where he was trained in rhetoric and philosophy

Life is long if you know how to use it.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca - Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, dramatist, and in one work, satirist, from the post-Augustan age of Latin literature. Seneca was born in Cordoba in Hispania, and raised in Rome, where he was trained in rhetoric and philosophy

It takes the whole of life to learn how to live, and -what will perhaps make you wonder more - it takes the whole of life to learn how to die.

Todd Henry - Author, international speaker, consultant, and advisor. He is the author of four books, which have been translated into more than a dozen languages

Don’t go to your grave with your best work inside of you. Choose to die empty.

Steve Chandler - Bestselling author of 100 Ways to Motivate Yourself, Time Warrior and 30 other books, is known as America's notoriously unorthodox personal growth guru. He has helped thousands of people transform their lives and businesses

Without being conscious of death, you can't be fully aware of the gift of life.

Michael Landon - American actor, writer, director, and producer

Somebody should tell us... right at the start of our lives... that we are dying. Then we might live to the limit, every minute of every day. Do it! I say. Whatever you want to do, do it now! There are only so many tomorrows.

Epictetus - Greek Stoic philosopher. He was born a slave at Hierapolis, Phrygia and lived in Rome until his banishment, when he went to Nicopolis in northwestern Greece for the rest of his life. His teachings were written down and published by his pupil Arrian in his Discourses and Enchiridion

What would have become of Hercules do you think if there had been no lion, hydra, stag or boar - and no savage criminals to rid the world of? What would he have done in the absence of such challenges? Obviously he would have just rolled over in bed and gone back to sleep. So by snoring his life away in luxury and comfort he never would have developed into the mighty Hercules. And even if he had, what good would it have done him? What would have been the use of those arms, that physique, and that noble soul, without crises or conditions to stir into him action?

Howard Thurman - American author, philosopher, theologian, educator, and civil rights leader. As a prominent religious figure, he played a leading role in many social justice movements and organizations of the twentieth century

Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive. Because what the world needs most is more people who have come alive.

Joe De Sena - CEO and founder of Spartan and the Death Race. He is also a NY Times best selling author of Spartan Up, Spartan Fit and The Spartan Way

He tells his friend, the noble wizard Gandalf, “I wish none of this had happened.” Gandalf’s reply is one of the greatest in all of literature. He says, “So do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us."

The Dhammapada - Collection of sayings of the Buddha in verse form and one of the most widely read and best known Buddhist scriptures

Many do not realize that we here must die. For those who realize this, quarrels end.

The Dhammapada - Collection of sayings of the Buddha in verse form and one of the most widely read and best known Buddhist scriptures

The aware do not die;
The unaware are as though dead already.

Jim Rohn - American entrepreneur, author and motivational speaker

When the record book on you is finished, let it show your wins and losses. But don't let it show you didn't try.

Barry Schwartz - American psychologist. Schwartz is the Dorwin Cartwright Professor of Social Theory and Social Action at Swarthmore College and since 2016 has been visiting professor at the University of California, Berkeley. His work focuses on the intersection of psychology and economics 

Thus, from cradle to grave, having control over one’s life matters. 

Hector Berlioz - French Romantic composer and conductor

Time is the great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all of its students.