Quotes

From “The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers”

Sam – “It’s like in the great stories Mr. Frodo, the ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were, and sometimes you didn’t want to know the end because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end it’s only a passing thing this shadow, even darkness must pass. A new day will come, and when the sun shines it’ll shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you, that meant something even if you were too small to understand why. But I think Mr. Frodo, I do understand, I know now folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn’t. They kept going because they were holding on to something.”

Frodo – “What are we holding onto, Sam?”

Sam – “That there’s some good in the world, Mr. Frodo, and it’s worth fighting for.”

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
Theodore Roosevelt, President
Citizenship in a Republic, Paris, France.  April 23, 1910.

“It’s perfectly okay to want to quit, as long as you don’t.”
Melissa Arnot, Mountaineer

“I fail over and over and over again, and that’s why I succeed.”
Michael Jordan, Icon

“I don’t ever lose.  I either win or I learn.”
Conor McGregor, Pugilist

“Greyhounds don’t race if they are able to catch the rabbit.”
Kolby “Condor” Kirk, The Hike Guy

“It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to.”
Bilbo Baggins, Hobbit

“If you’re not prepared, don’t be surprised if you fail.”
Laird Hamilton, Surf Legend

“You don’t conquer the mountain, you conquer yourself.”
Jim Whittaker, Mountain Legend

“To see the world, things dangerous to come to, to see behind walls, draw closer, to find each other and to feel. That is the purpose of Life.”
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, Movie

“It’s about dreaming big, and sacrificing a lot for your dreams.”
Tommy Caldwell, Rock Star

“Getting to the top is optional.  Getting down is mandatory.”
Ed Viesturs, Mountain Legend

“The journey of a thousand miles begins beneath one’s feet.”
Lao Tzu, Thinker

“I hated every minute of training.  But I said ‘Don’t quit.  Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a Champion!’ “
Muhammad Ali, Champion

“A goal is not always meant to be reached.  It often serves simply as something to aim at.”
Bruce Lee, Martial Artist

“Rule your mind or it will rule you.”
Buddha, Sage

“To the mind that is still the whole universe surrenders.”
Lao Tzu, Thinker

“Progress always involves risk; you can’t steal second base and keep your foot on first.”
Robert Quillen, Humorist

“Keep your head up in failure, and your head down in success.”
Jerry Seinfeld, Comedian

“I set goals every year.  To hit 30 homers, that’s five good swings a month. That’s all you got to do for six months.”
Fred McGriff, Hall of Famer

“If it comes down to one shot, I like to shoot the ball. I don’t worry about it. If it doesn’t go in, it doesn’t go in.”
Jerry West, Icon

“Somebody may beat me, but they’ll have to bleed to do it.”
Steve Prefontaine, Track Legend

“You’re remembered for the rules you break”
Douglas MacArthur, General of the Army

“I have a foreboding of an America in my children’s or grandchildren’s time — when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness…

The dumbing down of American is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance”
Carl Sagan, Starlord
The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark. 1995

“There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.”
Ernest Hemingway, Writer