The Power of Good Quotes

By Bill Cottringer

I have always loved good quotes. They usually capture and summarize the essence of complex truths or realities with just a few simple intriguing words. Here are a few quotes in my own words that represent some of my most important experiences in living and working.

1. Love is the gentle touching of two souls without the clamor of their external equipment.


2. A good relationship is where two people get more value and satisfaction together than they could ever have alone.


3. The happiest people are the ones who take the most chances.


4. One of the main challenges in life is to reach a healthy balance between being selfish and unselfish; but in the end you can be motivated to do something for another person because of how it makes you feel inside. Is that altruism or selfishness?


5. Life is mostly a book to read and the challenge is to learn, grow and improve our reading skills; the most significant progress occurs when you begin to look for positive purposes in the most negative events.


6. People who are negative, cynical, disagreeable, hostile and unhappy serve a very good purpose in warning the rest of us how not to be.


7. Relationships are the ultimate test of your character—to become painfully aware of your best and worst self and let the best self prevail, no matter how difficult that is.


8. We are living in a world of pervasive uncertainty that can only be mitigated by fundamental faith, tolerance for ambiguity, extreme mental flexibility and creativity.


9. The truth be known, we are really spiritual beings on a human journey and our purpose is to understand and nurture our souls which are underneath our minds, hearts and bodies.


10. Life can easily dampen the spirit of your imagination and dreams but you can’t let that happen.


11. The quickest way to ruin a new experience is to already have certain expectations as to your desired outcome.


12. You are usually not very successful in trying to change a reality you don’t yet fully understand; when you do understand the reality, you will either not need to change it or know how to be more effective.


13. Good love relationships usually begin with mutual compatibility of personal and spiritual development, sensitivity to that mutual closeness and open but careful communication about what seems to be going on.


14. The purpose of positive emotionality is to encourage you to keep moving in the direction you are going; the purpose of negative emotionality is to warn you to slow down and look at what you might need to do differently to get better results.


15. There are some diverse problems in life that have no resolution; the best you can do in these situations is to not take your chosen side too seriously as the only way. Such is the case with religion and state, republicans and democrats, justice and mercy, freedom and equality, and peaceniks and war mongers.


16. One quality is worth four quantities and one real quality is usually enough.


17. Keeping score at anything doesn’t make much sense because we are not at the end yet and incomplete counts lead to premature reactions.


18. Life occurs both on a literal and metaphorical level and the real truth is somewhere in between.


19. It is important to know the difference between what you want and what you need; the difference is that what you want is usually easy to get with short-range benefits and what you need is hard to get but has long-term benefits.


20. The trick to good communication is to talk once and listen twice—with two-eared listening to hear what was said below how it was said and what wasn’t said from what was said. 


21. It doesn’t make much sense to argue to  argue fiercely  about what you think you “know” because all knowledge involves a huge leap if faith in trusting the validity of the source. Optical illusions can be eye-opening.


22. Everything we do is either creating chaos or restoring order; the trick is to know which one you are really doing at any given time.


23. Nothing is so disconcerting as the truth spoken clearly and gently.


24. What you see depends mostly on where you are doing the looking from; therefore if you don’t like what you see, change viewpoints.


25. You will never get anyone to hear you until they know you are willing to listen to what they stand for.


26. Tests are an inevitable part of life so go ahead and learn how to pass the little easy ones the first time before they get bigger and harder.


27. One good question is more productive than a dozen clever answers.


28. No one is born with a guaranteed prescription for making right choices, but the more attention you pay to the choices you make and the results you get, the better chooser you become.


29.  We all have a tiny piece of the treasure map and sharing our pieces gives us all a much bigger piece of the map.


30. Wanting what you have is a prerequisite of getting what you want.