From My Files - Quotes on Potential

This week I’m sharing on Twitter some of my favorite quotes on potential. But I’m not always able to include them all. Here are the thoughts of some people, both famous and unknown, on our potential and how we use it:

An unused life is an early death. –Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

It is very dangerous to go into eternity with possibilities which one has oneself prevented from becoming realities. A possibility is a hint from God. One must follow it. –Soren Kierkegaard

If I were to wish for anything, I should not wish for wealth and power, but for the passionate sense of the potential, for the eye which, ever young and ardent, sees the possible. Pleasure disappoints, possibility never. –Soren Kierkegaard

The real tragedy is the tragedy of the man who never in his life braces himself for his one supreme effort, who never stretches to his full capacity, never stands up to his full stature. –Arnold Bennett

The real contest is always between what you’ve done and what you’re capable of doing. You measure yourself against yourself and nobody else. –Geoffrey Gaberino, Olympic gold medalist

We throw all our attention on the utterly idle question whether A has done as well as B, when the only question is whether A has done as well as he could. –William Graham Sumner

On our track to success, we have to fight the tendency to look at others and see how far they’ve come. The only thing that counts is how we use the potential we possess and that we run our race to the best of our abilities. –Denis Waitley and Reni L. Witt

We spend most of our 20s discovering all of the hundreds of things that we can be. But, as we mature into our 30s, we begin to discover all of the things we will NEVER be. The challenge for us as we reach our 40s and beyond is to put it all together – to know our capabilities and recognize our limitations – and become the BEST we can be. –Catherine B. Ahles

A man is a good deal like an automobile. You can’t tell how much gas he’s got in his tank by the sound of his horn, and you can’t tell how much horsepower he’s got under the hood by the noise of his exhaust. There’s usually the most noise where there is the least quality. –HP Thompson

What we are is God’s gift to us. What we become is our gift to God. -Eleanor Powell

Courtesy from John Maxwell