Matthew Kelly quotes: the motivational speaker sounds off.
“Our essential purpose is to become the best version of ourselves.”
“Dreams are the core of every person. It is there that our passion for life is ignited.”
“Living your dreams is often about facing your fears and rising to the challenge.”
“Thought determines action. Do not let your whole life be a reaction to the things that happen around you each day. Let your life be an action.”
“Thoughts create actions. Actions create habits. Habits create character.”
“Every journey to something is a journey away from something.”
“If you don’t know what you want form life, everything will appear either as an obstacle or a burden. But one of the greatest lessons of history is that the whole world gets out of the way for people who know what they want or where they are going. Be assured, if you don’t know where you are going, you are lost.”
“Time is either used wisely or wasted foolishly.”
“Work is not everything, but when you are doing work that doesn’t engage you or, worse yet, work that you despise, it can massively affect every other aspect of your life. It is simply impossible to create enduring happiness without finding an approach to work that allows you to thrive. Ideally this means finding work that you are passionate about, but even if you are not in your dream job—or don’t know what your dream job would be—there are ways to thrive at work.”
“Dreams bring us to life. Dreams animate us, and what dreams do for the individuals, they also do for relationships and companies. The pursuit of dreams creates passion, energy, enthusiasm and vitality.”
“People don’t do anything until they are inspired, but once they are inspired there is almost nothing they won’t do.”
“Fully engaged people believe the future can be bigger than the past, and they believe they can directly influence that bigger future. That’s our number one job as leaders… to convince people of those two things.”
“Remember: try to stay focused on progress, not perfection.”
“The reason most of us fail to achieve real and sustainable change in our lives is because we focus too much on the desired outcome and not enough on the progress we are making.”
“It takes more energy to maintain mediocrity than it takes to pursue excellence.”
“Our lives change when our habits change.”
“When you stand still, you reject the struggle, and you refuse to change and grow. Ultimately, you reject fulfillment, happiness, the dance for joy and everything else that is eternally good.”
“If you give your body a choice, it will always take the easy way out. Your body lies. It tells you it cannot when it can.”
“The hardest war to win is one you don’t even realize you are fighting, and the hardest enemy to defeat is the one you don’t even know exists. Every day you are at war with resistance.”
“Discipline is the path to happiness.”
“You cannot be healthy and happy without discipline. If you want to measure the level of happiness in your life, just measure the level of discipline in your life. You will never have more happiness than you have discipline.”
“Every disciplined effort has its own multiple reward.”
“Character is built little by little, over days, weeks, months, and years, with thousands of small and seemingly insignificant acts of discipline.”
“Freedom is not simply the circumstances that allow you to do whatever you want. Freedom is not only the opportunity to choose. Freedom is the strength of character to choose and to do what is good, true, noble and right. The foundation of freedom is not power or choice. Freedom is upheld not by men and women in government, but by people who govern themselves.”
“Connecting with people in a powerful way is a skill that must be developed, nurtured and practiced.”
“The way we see the world determines the way we live our lives.”
“Without an understanding of our own purpose, there can be no true commitment. Whether that commitment is to marriage, family, study, work, God, relationships, or the simple resolutions of our lives, it will be almost impossible to fulfill without a clear and practical understanding of our purpose. Commitment and purpose go hand in hand.”
“You will learn more from your friends than you ever will from books. Choose your friends wisely.”
“The people we surround ourselves with either raise or lower our standards. They either help us to become the best version of ourselves or encourage us to become lesser versions of ourselves. We become like our friends. No man becomes great on his own. No woman becomes great on her own. The people around them help to make them great. We all need people in our lives who raise our standards, remind us of our essential purpose, and challenge us to become the best version of ourselves.”
“Life is about saying yes to the things that help you become the best version of yourself and no to the things that don’t.”
“Whatever change you desire for the world, create that change in your own life. You are here for a purpose. Seek it out. Hunt it down. The greatest misery is to be purposeless.”
“The purpose of education and extracurricular activities is to provide opportunities for our children to develop discipline. Once discipline is learned, it can be applied to any area of life. Those who develop this discipline go off in search of excellence and live richer, more abundant lives.”
“Wherever you find excellence, you find continuous learning. They go hand in hand. Wherever you find that continuous learning is missing, you find mediocrity.”
“Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body and prayer is to the soul. We become the books we read.”
“Some books find us at just the right time in our lives and those books change our lives forever.”
“Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things. Hope is one of those things that you can’t buy, but that will be freely given to you if you ask. Hope is the one thing people cannot live without. Hope is a thing of beauty.”
“Never pass up an opportunity to speak a kind word of appreciation.”
“Life is about love. It’s about whom you love and whom you hurt. Life’s about how you love yourself and how you hurt yourself. Life’s about how you love and hurt the people close to you. Life is about how you love and hurt the people who just cross your path for a moment. Life is about love.”
“Love is the wanting, and the having, and the choosing, and the becoming. Love is the desire to see the person we love be and become all he or she is capable of being and becoming. Love is a willingness to lay down our own personal plans, desires, and agenda for the good of the relationship. Love is delayed gratification, pleasure, and pain. Love is being able to live and thrive apart, but choosing to be together.”
“Anything and anyone that does not help you to become the best version of yourself is too small for you.”
“Never believe a promise from a man or woman who has no discipline. They have broken a thousand promises to themselves, and they break their promise for you.”
“You will never have more happiness than discipline. People are most fully alive when they embrace a life of discipline.”
“Work-life balance was a mistake from the start. Because we don’t really want balance. We want satisfaction. Work-life balance, work-life effectiveness, personal and professional satisfaction—or whatever you choose to call it—is not an entitlement or benefit. Your company cannot give it to you. You have to create it for yourself. You are personally responsible for living the best life you can.”
“And so it will be with your life. There will be tough times; there are for everyone. There will be times of fear and trembling. There will be times of discouragement and disillusionment. Have courage, smile, keep your chin up, laugh often, be kind to yourself, stay focused, be gracious and appreciative, think happy thoughts, and carry on regardless.”
“God of deep waters and infinite riches, challenge me to go where I fear, to do what is difficult and what I thought could never be done. Push me to go to the deep waters of life and cast my net wide, for I put all my hope, trust and faith in you.”
“The challenge life presents to each of us is to become truly ourselves… not the self we have imagined or fantasized about, not the self that our friends want us to be, not the self our ego would have us be, but the self God has ordained us to be.”
“Who you become is infinitely more important than what you do, or what you have.”
“You can have a more satisfying life. You can have both personal and professional satisfaction. But nobody is going to just give it to you. It must be sought with relentless desire and commitment. Above all else, satisfaction must be sought patiently and with an overwhelming sense that we are responsible for creating satisfaction.”
“To lay your head on your pillow at night, knowing that who you are and what you do makes sense… now, that is satisfaction.”
“The measure of your life will be the measure of your courage.”
“There is a meaning and purpose to life. More specifically: there is a meaning and purpose to your life.”
“Let your life be guided by greatness.”
“Whether you are 16 or 60, the rest of your life is ahead of you. You cannot change one moment of your past, but you can change your whole future. Now is your time.”
“I believe the best way to defend life is to celebrate life. I believe the best way to celebrate life is to live our own lives to the fullest—to embrace life with arms wide open, to lay our lives enthusiastically at the service of humanity, to love deeply the people who cross our paths, and above all, to embrace our God. Life should never be wasted—not one moment—because life is precious.”
