12 Great Motivational Quotes for 2013

At the start of every year, I create a list of quotes to guide and inspire me for the next 12 months. Here are the quotes I've selected for 2013:

1. "Cherish your visions and your dreams as they are the children of your soul, the blueprints of your ultimate achievements."
   Napoleon Hill


2. "The key to success is to focus our conscious mind on things we desire not things we fear."
   Brian Tracy


3. "Success is getting what you want. Happiness is wanting what you get."
   Dale Carnegie


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


5. "A real decision is measured by the fact that you've taken a new action. If there's no action, you haven't truly decided."
   Tony Robbins


6. "If you can't control your anger, you are as helpless as a city without walls waiting to be attacked."
   The Book of Proverbs


7. A mediocre person tells. A good person explains. A superior person demonstrates. A great person inspires others to see for themselves."
   Harvey Mackay


8. "Freedom, privileges, options, must constantly be exercised, even at the risk of inconvenience."
   Jack Vance


9. "Take care of your body. It's the only place you have to live."
   Jim Rohn


10. "You can have everything in life you want, if you will just help other people get what they want."
    Zig Ziglar


11. "The number of times I succeed is in direct proportion to the number of times I can fail and keep on trying."
    Tom Hopkins


12. "You have everything you need to build something far bigger than yourself."
    Seth Godin

selected BY GEOFFREY JAMES 

A positive attitude make success easy; a negative one makes success pointless.

“The only way to have a friend is to be one.”

– Ralph Waldo Emerson, Poet

Though your burdens bring pains which are very real indeed,
remember to keep them in perspective. Look also at the big
picture and see the positive possibilities, radiating out
from you in every direction.
Ralph Marston

“Opportunity often comes disguised in the form of misfortune, or temporary defeat.”

– Napoleon Hill, Motivational Writer

“He that respects himself is safe from others; he wears a coat of mail that none can pierce.”

– Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Poet

Reading is essential for those who seek to rise above the
ordinary. We must not permit anything to stand between us
and the book that could change our lives.
Jim Rohn

 

“I’m an optimist. I’ve always believed the future is going to be better than the past. And I also believe I have a role in that. The great thing about human beings, myself in particular, is that I can change. I can do better. If you can get up every day, stay optimistic, and believe the future is better than the past, those few things get you through a lot of tough times.”

– Jeffrey Immelt, CEO of GE

Don't wait. The time will never be just right.
Napoleon Hill

12 Great Motivational Quotes for 2013

This set of inspirational thoughts for the new year will galvanize you into action.

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At the start of every year, I create a list of quotes to guide and inspire me for the next 12 months. Here are the quotes I've selected for 2013:

1. "Cherish your visions and your dreams as they are the children of your soul, the blueprints of your ultimate achievements."
   Napoleon Hill


2. "The key to success is to focus our conscious mind on things we desire not things we fear."
   Brian Tracy


3. "Success is getting what you want. Happiness is wanting what you get."
   Dale Carnegie


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


5. "A real decision is measured by the fact that you've taken a new action. If there's no action, you haven't truly decided."
   Tony Robbins


6. "If you can't control your anger, you are as helpless as a city without walls waiting to be attacked."
   The Book of Proverbs


7. A mediocre person tells. A good person explains. A superior person demonstrates. A great person inspires others to see for themselves."
   Harvey Mackay


8. "Freedom, privileges, options, must constantly be exercised, even at the risk of inconvenience."
   Jack Vance


9. "Take care of your body. It's the only place you have to live."
   Jim Rohn


10. "You can have everything in life you want, if you will just help other people get what they want."
    Zig Ziglar


11. "The number of times I succeed is in direct proportion to the number of times I can fail and keep on trying."
    Tom Hopkins


12. "You have everything you need to build something far bigger than yourself."
    Seth Godin

Readers: I want to begin this year with a huge burst of motivation. Can you help me out? What quotes or thoughts inspire YOU to be the best that you can be?  (Leave a comment!)

Geoffrey James is seeking out Sales Source readers to review advance chapters of his forthcoming book, Business Without the Bullsh*t. If interested, email: gj @ geoffreyjames dot com. @Sales_Source

The only graceful way to accept an insult is to ignore it; if you can't ignore it, top it. If you can't top it, laugh at it. If you can't laugh at it, it's probably deserved.

John Russel Lynes

Cultivate the habit of laughter.
Og Mandino

Opportunity knocks at the strangest times yet it's not the time that matters but how you answer the door.
Steve Gray

To do the useful thing, to say the courageous thing, to contemplate the beautiful thing -- that is enough for one man's life.

Thomas Stearns Eliot

If you can't tie good knots, tie plenty of them.
Yachtsman's Credo

Success is a direction more than a destination. The real rewards of success begin to accrue as soon as you start moving yourself forward with a positive, sustained focus.
Ralph Marston

“Miracles can be made, but only by sweating.”

– Giovanni Agnelli, Industrialist

“Leadership is a potent combination of strategy and character. But if you must be without one, be without the strategy.”

– Norman Schwarzkopf, Army General

Right actions for the future are the best apologies for wrong ones in the past.
Tryon Edwards

“Contentment comes not so much from great wealth as from few wants.”

– Epictetus, Philosopher

A leader's role is to raise people's aspirations for what they can become and to release their energies so they will try to get there.
David Gergen

Every thought is a seed. If you plant crab apples, don't count on harvesting Golden Delicious.
Bill Meyer

An optimist may see a light where there is none, but why must the pessimist always run to blow it out?
Rene Descartes

To have loyal, efficient employees -- be a loyal and efficient employer.
Arthur W. Newcomb

A leader's role is to raise people's aspirations for what they can become and to release their energies so they will try to get there.
David Gergen

 

The wise man, even when he holds his tongue, says more than the fool when he speaks.
Yiddish saying

An optimist may see a light where there is none, but why must the pessimist always run to blow it out?
Rene Descartes

 

“Don’t measure yourself by what you have accomplished, but by what you should have accomplished with your ability.”

– John Wooden, Basketball Coach

The darkest hour in any man's life is when he sits down to plan how to get money without earning it.
Horace Greeley

“People with goals succeed because they know where they’re going”

– Earl Nightingale, Motivational Speaker

Originality and the feeling of one's own dignity are achieved only through work and struggle.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky

When it becomes more difficult to suffer than to change, you will change.
Dr. Robert Anthony

“Don’t measure yourself by what you have accomplished, but by what you should have accomplished with your ability.”

– John Wooden, Basketball Coach

The more clarity one brings to a problem, the closer one gets to solving it.
Floyd Maxwell

“Work is not man’s punishment. It is his reward and his strength and his pleasure.”

– George Sand, Novelist

“Happiness is not a goal, it’s a by-product of a life well lived.”

– Eleanor Roosevelt, Former First Lady

A scientist is a man who changes his beliefs according to reality, a theist is a man who changes reality to match his beliefs.
Volker Braun

Failure is not a single, cataclysmic event. You don't fail overnight. Instead, failure is a few errors in judgment, repeated every day.
Jim Rohn

“Goals allow you to control the direction of change in your favor.”

– Brian Tracy, Author

A man of genius is not a man who sees more than other men do. The man of genius understands the importance of the few things he sees.
George Bernard Shaw

“I have learned over the years that when one’s mind is made up, this diminishes fear; knowing what must be done does away with fear.”

– Rosa Parks, Civil Rights Activist

Power is the ability to do good things for others.
Brooke Astor

“The man who removes a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.”

– William Faulkner, Novelist

Through self-awareness, we set goals with realistic stretch, and stay open to conscience-driven change.

Stephen R. Covey

“Leadership is getting players to believe in you. If you tell a teammate you’re ready to play as tough as you’re able to, you’d better go out there and do it. Players will see right through a phony. And they can tell when you’re not giving it all you’ve got.”

– Larry Bird, NBA Basketball Player

If you're never scared or embarrassed or hurt, it means you never take any chances.
Julia Sorel

In my day, we didn't have self-esteem, we had self-respect, and no more of it than we had earned.
Jane Haddam

Prosperity is a great teacher; adversity a greater.
William Hazlitt

A leader's role is to raise people's aspirations for what they can become and to release their energies so they will
try to get there.
David Gergen

Years wrinkle the face, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul.
Watterson Lowe