Betty Smith Quotes

I can tell you character traits I admire and work to develop in myself - perseverance, self-discipline, courage to stand up for what is right even when it is against one's friends or one's self.

I've seen the good, the bad, and the ugly. Lived it and I'm still here to talk about it and help someone else if I can.

I have met hundreds of young people doing just what George Romney did: using a hand up in tough times to become part of the American Dream.

When people see what I have now, they have no idea of where I came from and how I didn't have anything growing up.

I come from humble beginnings myself.

I'm very very happy for my hardships and misfortunes: they build character and make you a better person. Even if I think it's something you have to carry with you, it's definitely something that makes you more empathic towards other people, makes you understand people and relationships so much better.

My parents' story is a great example of the American dream. Their struggles, their hard work for a better family... it inspires - that no matter how bad it might seem, you can always move past that and better yourself.

Lincoln was not great because he was born in a log cabin, but because he got out of it

In order to deserve, we must pay our dues and steadily work for perfection. We must relish in struggle, and relinquish pride. We must dispel fear and seek enlightenment. We must shun division and honor love. We must know our hearts and seek to understand others. We must try, live, create, feel, grow and love.

O human race, born to fly upward, wherefore at a little wind dost thou so fall?

No pain that we suffer, no trial that we experience is wasted. All that we suffer and all that we endure, especially when we endure it patiently, builds up our characters, purifies our hearts, expands our souls, and makes us more tender and charitable.

We should take heart from our own experience and performance. In a cynical world we have become an inspiration to many.

That which causes us trials shall yield us triumph: and that which make our hearts ache shall fill us with gladness. The only true happiness is to learn, to advance, and to improve: which could not happen unless we had commenced with error, ignorance, and imperfection. We must pass through the darkness, to reach the light.

Without defeats, how do you really know who the hell you are? If you never had to stand up to something - to get up, to be knocked down, and to get up again - life can walk over you wearing football cleats. But each time you do get up, you're bigger, taller, finer, more beautiful, more kind, more understanding, more loving. Each time you get up, you're more inclusive. More people can stand under your umbrella.

Have an open mind and an open heart. I'm not this bad person. I'm just doing what I have to do.

Success is like a mountain that keeps growing ahead of you as you hike it... Err in the direction of kindness.

By habits of thrift and economy, by way of the industrial school and college, we are coming up. We are crawling up, working up, yea, bursting up-often through oppression, unjust discrimination and prejudice-but through them all we are coming up, and with proper habits, intelligence, and property, there is no power on earth than can permanently stay our progress.

I come from a hut, from a hut I went to the projects, from the projects I went to a mansion so you out there you have ABSOLUTLY NO EXCUSE!

Don't be defined by your failures, be refined by them.

Learn from this, there's a light at the end of the tunnel. Hell does have an exit, and I found it. For those who are still looking for a way out, I left the door open and I'll be waiting for whoever wants to grow with me.

No soul that aspires can ever fail to rise; no heart that loves can ever be abandoned. Difficulties exist only that in overcoming them we may grow strong, and they who have suffered are able to save.

As long as you've done your best, making mistakes doesn't matter. You and I are human; we will mess up. What counts is learning from your mistakes and getting back up when life has knocked you down.

Reading put perspective to any challenge I was facing and made me see that extraordinary people usually had extraordinary pain, difficulties or injustices. That's part of why they have the drive and hunger to do good in the world, to make something happen.

I have more compassion than if I had led a life where everything worked out exactly as I had planned or if I had never been wounded or if I had never been betrayed or I had never been harmed. I don't think I would be as good a person.

He pulled himself out of hard times, dealt with the scars from it, pushed himself to make a mark. A little bit of the wild side there, always. I told myself, oh no, I won't get tangled up with this one. And I said it again, even when I was tangled up.