Good action

Do not wait for extraordinary circumstances to do good action; try to use ordinary situations. --Jean Paul Richter

Beauty

Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it. --Confucius

Power of dreams

Never underestimate the power of dreams and the influence of the human spirit. We are all the same in this notion: The potential for greatness lives within each of us. --Wilma Rudolph

Mathematics

Mathematics possesses not only truth, but also supreme beauty. --Bertrand Russell

Assume Positive Intent

ndra Nooyi -- PepsiCo's CEO, listed in Time's Top 100 influentials around the globe -- was recently asked by Fortune magazine: What was the best advice you ever got? She had a great response:

My father was an absolutely wonderful human being. From him I learned to always assume positive intent. Whatever anybody says or does, assume positive intent. You will be amazed at how your whole approach to a person or problem becomes very different. When you assume negative intent, you're angry. If you take away that anger and assume positive intent, you will be amazed. Your emotional quotient goes up because you are no longer almost random in your response. You don't get defensive. You don't scream. You are trying to understand and listen because at your basic core you are saying, "Maybe they are saying something to me that I'm not hearing." So "assume positive intent" has been a huge piece of advice for me.

In business, sometimes in the heat of the moment, people say things. You can either misconstrue what they're saying and assume they are trying to put you down, or you can say, "Wait a minute. Let me really get behind what they are saying to understand whether they're reacting because they're hurt, upset, confused, or they don't understand what it is I've asked them to do." If you react from a negative perspective - because you didn't like the way they reacted - then it just becomes two negatives fighting each other. But when you assume positive intent, I think often what happens is the other person says, "Hey, wait a minute, maybe I'm wrong in reacting the way I do because this person is really making an effort."

question

One's first step in wisdom is to question everything - and one's last is to come to terms with everything. --Georg C. Lichtenberg

knowledge

Knowledge has three degrees—opinion, science, illumination. The means or instrument of the first is sense; of the second, dialectic; of the third, intuition. --Plotinus

Difficult

It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare, it is because we do not dare that things are difficult. --Seneca

Beautiful

The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious -- the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science. --Albert Einstein

To be a greater person by far than you ever dreamed

When you are inspired by some great purpose, some extraordinary project, all your thoughts break their bounds. Dormant forces, faculties and talents become alive, and you discover yourself to be a greater person by far than you ever dreamed yourself to be. --Pantanjali

Forgive

When a deep injury is done us, we never recover until we forgive. --Alan Paton