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For quite some time until a computer crash I had a list of this man’s quotes saved on my desktop. They were so powerful that I read them every day.

Edit 09/21/09: Just found the original post that introduced me to Og Mandino. This massive treasure chest is well worth the time to read it! Og Mandino Treasure Chest

Og Mandino was a World War II bomber pilot who could not find work after the war. A problem all too common for war veterans even today. With no where else to turn he started selling insurance. Between lack of work, memories of war, and his mothers early death Mandino turned to alcohol. He was at the point of being suicidal until he ran across the self-help section at a library. Steadily he replaced his drinking habit with the habit of reading positive books. This practice led him to becoming a great salesman, and one of the best selling inspiration authors of all time. Today his books and quotes are still a powerful treasure, but don’t take my word for it, here is what Mandino himself had to say.

I will love the light for it shows me the way, yet I will endure the darkness for it shows me the stars.

Your only limitations are those you set up in your mind, or permit others to set up for you.

Beginning today, treat everyone you meet as if they were going to be dead by midnight. Extend to them all the care, kindness and understanding you can muster, and do so with no thought of any reward. Your life will never be the same again.

Every defeat, every heartbreak, every loss, contains its own seed, its own lesson on how to improve your performance the next time.

Remind thyself, in the darkest moments, that every failure is only a step toward success, every detection of what is false directs you toward what is true, every trial exhausts some tempting form of error, and every adversity will only hide, for a time, your path to peace and fulfillment.

Treasure the friendship you receive above all. It will survive long after your gold and good health have vanished.

Take the attitude of a student, never be too big to ask questions, never know too much to learn something new.

Every one should be wealthy, if only for a day, so that each might realize that being rich is not the ideal condition that most believe it is. And like the land, we should have little need for all that silver when we cease breathing. Let us enjoy the smiling faces of as many children of god as we can while we are able to see them.

Weak is he who permits his thoughts to control his actions; strong is he who forces his actions to control his thoughts.

A smile remains the most inexpensiv gift I can bestow on anyone and yet its powers can vanquish kingdoms.

He who worries about calamities suffers them twice over.

Realize that true happiness lies within you. Waste no time and effort searching for peace and contentment and joy in the world outside. Remember that there is no happiness in having or in getting, but only in giving. Reach out. Share. Smile. Hug. Happiness is a perfume you cannot pour on others without getting a few drops on yourself.

Always seek out the seed of triumph in every adversity.

Sound character provides the power with which a person may ride the emergencies of life instead of being overwhelmed by them. Failure is… the highway to success.

To do anything truly worth doing, I must not stand back shivering and thinking of the cold and danger, but jump in with gusto and scramble through as well as I can.

Obstacles are necessary for success because in selling, as in all careers of importance, victory comes only after many struggles and countless defeats.

Sound character provides the power with which a person may ride the emergencies of life instead of being overwhelmed by them. Failure is… the highway to success.

To be always intending to make a new and better life but never to find time to set about it is as to put off eating and drinking and sleeping from one day to the next until you’re dead.

The secret of success is to triple your rate of failure.

More on Og Mandino:
Wikipedia
Official Website
Books by Og Mandino