I get a lot of compliments on the inspirational quotes in THE FIRE STARTER SESSIONS. (Thank you!)

Here they are, all in one place. Circle back to them when you need some poetic shine.

It is not revolutions and upheavals that clear the road to better days,
but revelations, and lavishness of someone’s soul inspired, and ablaze.
—Boris Pasternak, poet

I have been running so sweaty my whole life
Urgent for a finish line
And I have been missing the rapture this whole time
Of being forever incomplete
—Alanis Morissette, “Incomplete”

anything or anyone
that does not bring you alive
is too small for you
—David Whyte, poet

I found out that there
weren’t too many limitations,
if I did it my way.
—Johnny Cash

I am not the person who is singing
I am the silent one inside. . . .
I am not my house, my car, my songs
They are only stops along my way. . . .
—Paula Cole, “Me”

Forget about good.
Good is a known quantity.
Good is what we all agree on.
As long as you stick to good,
you’ll never have real growth.
—Bruce Mau, designer

If poetry does not come as naturally as leaves to a tree,
then it better not come at all.
—John Keats

I do not want to be folded
for where I am folded,
there I am a lie.
—Rilke

Jonathan Livingston Seagull . . . was no ordinary bird. Most gulls don’t bother to learn more than the simplest facts of flight— how to get from shore to food and back again. For most gulls, it is not flying that matters, but eating. For this gull, though, it was not eating that mattered, but flight. More than anything else, Jonathan Livingston Seagull loved to fly.
—Richard Bach, Jonathan Livingston Seagull

You grow most in your areas of greatest strength. You will improve the most, be the most creative, be the most inquisitive, and bounce back the fastest in those areas where you have already shown some natural advantage over everyone else— your strengths. This doesn’t mean you should ignore your weaknesses. It just means you’ll grow most where you’re already strong.
—Marcus Buckingham, Now, Discover Your Strengths

The need to be normal is the predominant anxiety disorder
in modern life.
—Thomas Moore, Original Self

An integral being knows without going,
sees without looking, and accomplishes without doing.
—Lao-tzu

Take a nap
Making the mountain water
Pound the rice.
— Kobayashi Issa

Whenever there is enthusiasm, there is a creative
empowerment that goes far beyond what a mere person is
capable of.
—Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth

The longing for happiness and freedom from suffering
expresses the great natural potential of mind.
—Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche, Tibetan Buddhist lama

The one who asks
questions doesn’t lose his way.
—African proverb

When we have arrived at the question, the answer is already near.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson

Genius is the ability to receive
from the universe.
—I Ching

You are what you think about all day.
—Allen Ginsberg

You can’t change t he wor ld f rom t he rear view mir ror.
—Anita Roddick, founder of The Body Shop

We can still astonish the gods in humanity
And be the stuff of future legends,
If we but dare to be real,
And have the courage to see
That this is the time to dream
The best dream of them all.
—Ben Okri, Mental Flight

How you get so fly? . . .
from not being afraid to fall out the sky.
—Jay Z, “Beach Chair”

There will always be suffering.
But we must not suffer over the suffering.
—Alan Watts, Zen master

Criticism is something we can avoid easily
by saying nothing, doing nothing,
and being nothing.
—Aristotle

If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save
you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not
bring forth will destroy you.
—Saint Thomas

Losses aren’t cataclysmic if they teach the heart and
soul their natural cycle of breaking and healing. A
real tragedy? That’s the loss of the heart and soul
themselves. If you’ve abandoned yourself in the effort
to keep anyone or anything else, unlearn that pattern.
Live your truth, losses be damned. Just like that, your
heart and soul will return home.
—Martha Beck

The way is light and fluid for the man with
no preferences.
—Lao-tzu

Love everyone. Trust few. Paddle your own canoe.
—Anonymous

When your fear touches someone’s pain it becomes pity;
when your love touches someone’s pain, it becomes
compassion. To train in compassion, then, is to know
all beings are the same and suffer in similar ways,
to honor all those who suffer, and to know you are
neither separate from nor superior to anyone.
—Stephen Levine

A lot of the time, it’s better to quit
than to be the hero.
— Jason Fried +
David Heinemeier Hansson,
authors of Rework

The entire universe is a great theater of mirrors.
—Alice Bailey

I am my best work— a series of road maps, reports, recipes,
doodles, and prayers from the front lines.
—Audre Lorde, poet

People who earn the label “creative” are really just people who
come up with more combinations of ideas, find interesting ones faster,
and are willing to try them out. The problem is that most schools
and organizations train us out of those habits.
—Guy Kawasaki, Reality Check

A master in the art of living draws no sharp distinction
between his work and his play; his labor and his leisure;
his mind and his body; his education and his recreation. He
hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision
of excellence through whatever he is doing, and leaves
others to determine whether he is working or playing. To
himself, he always appears to be doing both.
—Lawrence Pearsall Jacks

If you have knowledge, let others light their candles in it.
—Margaret Fuller

When I say be creative, I don’t mean you should all go and
become great painters and great poets. I simply mean let
your life be a painting, let your life be a poem.
—Osho

Your genuine action will explain itself, and
will explain your other genuine actions.
Your conformity explains nothing.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson

If it looks good, you’ll see it.
If it sounds good, you’ll hear it.
If it’s marketed right, you’ll buy it.
But if it’s true, you’ll feel it.
—Kid Rock

Always be a first-rate version of yourself, instead of a
second-rate version of somebody else.
—Judy Garland

Rejoice and love yourself today
’Cause baby, you were born this way.
—Lady Gaga

Emotional labor is available to all of us,
but it is rarely exploited as a competitive
advantage.
—Seth Godin

If you tell a true story, you can’t be wrong.
—Jack Kerouac

The market for something to believe in is infinite.
—Hugh MacLeod

Oh would some power the gift give us,
to see ourselves as others see us!
—Robert Burns

In the name of the Fire,
The Flame
And the Light;
Praise the pure presence of fire
That burns from within
Without thought of time.
—John O’Donohue

The only reason for time is so that
everything doesn’t happen at once.
—Albert Einstein

Quit thinking time is “out there.” Take ownership of time—
acknowledge that you are where it comes from— and it will
stop owning you. Claim time as yours and it will release its
claim on you.
—Gay Hendricks

Money is only a tool. It will take you wherever you wish,
but it will not replace you as the driver.
—Ayn Rand

Sales solve everything.
—Mark Cuban

I find it quite curious and distressing that the wage gap— the
disparity between what men and women make— captures so
much attention, when the far more insidious problem is our
own proclivity to settle for less.
The real reason underearners are in denial is that they are
afraid. An admission of truth makes us accountable to
change. Denial keeps us stuck. Recognition sets us free.
—Barbara Stanny, Secrets of Six-Figure Women

All the best things I did at Apple came from a) not having
any money, and b) not having done it before, ever.
—Steve Wozniak, cofounder of Apple

Don’t spend it before you have it.
— Melody Biringer, self-proclaimed start-up junkie
and founder of more than twenty businesses,
most currently the CRAVE Company

Don’t spend it when you get it.
—Robert Kent, photographer and philanthropist

Grow organically.
—Rikia Saddy, marketing strategist

Follow the money.
-Plenty of people.

In everyone’s life, at some time, our inner fire goes out.
It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another
human being. We should all be thankful for those people
who rekindle the inner spirit.
—Albert Schweitzer

There is no union except in the same high effort.
—Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Each of us is here for a brief sojourn; for what purpose
he knows not, though he sometimes thinks he senses it.
But without deeper reflection one knows from daily life
that one exists for other people.
—Albert Einstein

This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose
recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being
thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the
scrap heap; the being a force of Nature instead of a
feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances
complaining that the world will not devote itself to
making you happy.
—George Bernard Shaw

Of all the fires, love is the only inexhaustible one.
—Pablo Neruda

That I spent, that I had; that I gave, that I have; that I left, that I lost.
—Robert Byrkes, A.D. 1579

Give until it hurts.
—The Dalai Lama

Spiritual practice is returning again and again
to softness.
—Stephanie Dowrick, Seeking the Sacred

That’s why we’re here—
to make a dent in the universe.
—Hugh MacLeod

Givers get given to.
—Russell Simmons

Now is blessed
The rest
Remembered
—Jim Morrison, Wilderness

Ready, aim, fire? Fire. Fire. Fire.
—Peter Senge, The Fifth Discipline

Your way begins at the other side.
Become the sky.
Take an axe to the prison wall.
Escape.
Walk out like someone suddenly born into color.
Do it now.
—Rumi

You’re stronger, and you’re better, and you’re
ready for whatever.
—Alicia Keys, “Wait Til You See My Smile”

In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities,
but in the expert’s mind there are few.
—Shunryu Suzuki, Zen master

The ability to start out upon your own impulse is
fundamental to the gift of keeping going upon your own
terms. . . . Getting started, keeping going, getting started
again— in art and in life, it seems to me this is the
essential rhythm.
—Seamus Heaney, poet

The greater the artist, the greater the doubt.
Perfect confidence is granted to the less talented
as a consolation prize.
—Robert Hughes, art critic

If consensus is overrated, I think balance is, too.
I have no interest in living a balanced life.
I want a life of adventure.
—Chris Guillebeau, The Art of Non-Conformity

In the end, the quest for balance is bogus.
Love your burdens. Love them hard. And when
your loves knock you down or your weak ankles
trip you up, stop worrying about balancing
— ’cuz you’re not— and bounce.
—Kelly Diels, Cleavage

The antidote to exhaustion isn’t rest.
It’s wholeheartedness.
—David Whyte, poet

Enough of these phrases, conceit and metaphors,
I want burning, burning, burning.
—Rumi

You are in the perfect position to get there from here.
—Abraham-Hicks

I forged you with my speech,
No longer bereft, you blaze.
—Emily Warn, poet