This is a collection of some of our favorite quotes that inspire us–both because we’ve been on the receiving end of them, and because they govern the essence of what we strive to pay forward with this thing called Tall City Blues Fest!
Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men’s blood.
-Daniel Burnham, Director of Works for World’s Columbian Exposition (Chicago, 1893)
Only those who risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go. -T.S. Eliot
Start by doing what’s necessary; then do what’s possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible. -St. Francis
Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than the ones that you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover. -Mark Twain
Our most important mental talent is the ability to imagine what has never existed. -Jonathan Lehrer, author of ‘Imagine: How Creativity Works’
We have not come into the world to be numbered; we have been created for a purpose; for great things; to love and to be loved.
-Mother Teresa
To find joy in work is to discover the fountain of youth. -Pearl S. Buck
Dreams are renewable. No matter what our age or condition, there are still untapped possibilities within us and new beauty waiting to be born. -Dale E. Turner
The thing always happens that you really believe in; and the belief in a thing makes it happen. -Frank Lloyd Wright
Adventure is worthwhile. -Amelia Earhart
Start something that matters. -Blake Mycoskie
To be a warrior is not a simple matter of wishing to be one. It is rather an endless struggle that will go on to the very last moment of our lives. Nobody is born a warrior, in exactly the same way that nobody is born an average man. We make ourselves into one or the other. -Carlos Castenada
A great beginning is sometimes at the point of what you thought would be the end of everything. -Dodinsky
I see my path, but don’t know where it leads. Not knowing where I’m going is what inspires me to travel it. -Rosalia de Castro
Don’t be afraid to go out on a limb. That’s where the fruit is. -H. Jackson Browne
First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they fight you. Then you win. -Mahatma Gandhi
Live out of your imagination, not your history. -Stephen Covey
Living out our mission should be driven as much by love as by task or goal. Getting the work done should not supercede the building of relationships. -Unknown
The thing that is really hard, and really amazing, is giving up on being perfect and beginning the work of becoming yourself. -Anna Quindlen
Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for? -Robert Browning
You know an idea has promise when it seems obvious in retrospect.
-Harry West, CEO of design firm Continuum Innovation
To love and be loved is to feel the sun from both sides.
-David Viscott
You may indeed find yourself living a comfortable life when you don’t follow your instincts. You pay the bills, fill out all the right forms, and live a life of fitting in and doing it by the book. But it’s a book that was written by somebody else. -Wayne Dyer
Joy is not in things; IT IS IN US.
-Richard Wagner
Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.
-Les Brown
The challenge, therefore, is to take pleasure in the atmosphere of growth, in the gradual progress made toward a goal [rather than seeking only to arrive at your goal.] -Gretchen Rubin, Author of The Happiness Project
Service isn’t comfort, but it gives you a purpose in life and it forces you to stop thinking about yourself. -Unknown
The hardest challenge is to be yourself in a world where everyone is trying to make you be somebody else. -E. E. Cummings
“Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up” -Thomas Edison
The tragedy of life is not death, but what we let die inside us while we live. -Norman Cousins
Quit before you start, quit if the project is a cul-de-sac, but NEVER EVER quit in the middle of the dip.
-Seth Godin, author of ’The Dip’
Happiness is the feeling you’re feeling when you want to keep feeling it.
-Unknown
Those who bring sunshine to the lives of others cannot keep it from themselves.
-James Matthew Barrie
If it isn’t scary, it isn’t worth doing!
-Angelina Jolie, in an interview with Vanity Fair
Life is too important to be taken seriously.
-Oscar Wilde
Some pursue happiness; others create it.
-Unknown
Great acts are made up of small deeds.
-Lao Tzu
We grow great by dreams.
-Woodrow Wilson
Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on Earth.
-Muhammed Ali
There will always be dreams grander or humbler than your own, but there will never be a dream exactly like your own…for you are unique and more wondrous than you know!
-Linda Staten
You tend to get told that the world is the way it is, but life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact; and that is that everything around you that you call life was made up by people no smarter than you. … Once you learn that, you’ll never be the same again.
-Steve Jobs
