Navigating Challenges Quotes

Some people don't like change, but you need to embrace change if the alternative is disaster.

I have often marveled at the thin line which separates success from failure.

Adversity is not simply a tool. It is God's most effective tool for the advancement of our spiritual lives. The circumstances and events that we see as setbacks are oftentimes the very things that launch us into periods of intense spiritual growth. Once we begin to understand this, and accept it as a spiritual fact of life, adversity becomes easier to bear.

Without being good enough, I started figuring out how to make my way through the minefield of a script, which is what it was to me at the time, and the rest is semi-history.

Life is a maze in which we take the wrong turning before we have learned to walk.

Our lives are our mythic journeys, and our happy endings are still to be won.

I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo. "So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.

If you act like the river, you ultimately flow past all the rocks along the way.

You can always land on your feet if you know where the ground is.

For the ocean is big and my boat is small. Find the courage.

How will I ever get out of this labyrinth!" In reality, "How will I ever get out of this labyrinth!" were probably not Simon Bolivar's last words (although he did, historically, say them). His last words may have been "Jose! Bring the luggage. They do not want us here." The significant source for "How will I ever get out of this labyrinth!" is also Alaska's source, Gabriel Garcia Marquez's The General in his Labyrinth.

The great pilot can sail even when his canvass is rent.

The twisted circumstances under which we live is grist for the writing mill, the loving, hating and discovering, finding new handles for old pitchers . . .

The way out is the way through.

Every major difficulty you face in life is a fork in the road. You choose which track you will head down, toward breakdown or breakthrough.

Visit with your predecessors from previous Administrations. They know the ropes and can help you see around some corners. Try to make original mistakes, rather than needlessly repeating theirs.

Some of the choices in life will choose you. How you face those choices, these turns in the road, with what kind of attitude, more than the choices themselves, is what will define the context of your life.

Experience is the pocket-compass that few think of consulting until they have lost their way.

Can the child within my heart rise above Can I sail through the changing ocean tides Can I handle the seasons of my life Well, I've been afraid of changing 'Cause I've built my life around you But time makes you get bolder Even children get older And I'm getting older too

There is first of all the problem of the opening, namely, how to get us from where we are, which is, as yet, nowhere, to the far bank. It is a simple bridging problem, a problem of knocking together a bridge. People solve such problems every day. They solve them, and having solved them push on.

There is a way; Up, Around, Over or Through

You've gotta have a path [in your life]. And then, within that path, you have to be flexible. When things aren't working, you've gotta cut bait and find something else, but if you don't have a path, you're just dead.

The path to realizing our dreams is never smooth. Invariably we encounter bends, turns, detours, and roadblocks. Sometimes our frustrations make us want to give up the journey, but frustrations signal the need to pause for introspection and redirection. Frustrations are promptings from God to search our souls even more deeply to find our power and purpose, and to live it. Frustrations tell us that our thoughts and actions are not yet in harmony with our desires.

I suspect that marriage is like parenthood: every last one of us is an amateur at it.