Thirteen Favorite Quotes from
Make the Impossibe Possible(ISBN 978-0-385-52054-6) - We greet them all with the same basic recipe for success: high standards, stiff challenges, a chance to develop unexplored talents, and a message that many of them haven’t heard before – that no matter how difficult the circumstances their lives may be, no matter how many bad assumptions they’ve made about their chances in life, no matter how well they’ve been taught to rein in their dreams and narrow their aspirations, that have the right, and the potential, to expect to live rich and satisfying lives.
- Each one of us, no matter who our parents are, where we live, how much education we have, or what kinds of connections, abilities, and opportunities life may have offered us, has the potential to shape our lives in ways that will bring us the meaning, purpose, and success we long for. That’s the essential lesson of my life and of this book: that each of us can achieve the “impossible” in our lives. I want everyone who comes to this book, no matter what their age or accomplishments or the circumstances of their lives, to rethink their assumptions about what is and isn’t possible in their lives, and to convince themselves that they have not only the right but also the responsibility, and the capacity, to dream big and to make those dreams come true.
- Owning up to that obligation not only makes us more human, it also connects us to the bottomless reserves of passion, vision, conviction, and commitment that I believe are present in abundance in every human heart, and that are the fuel for genuine and deeply fulfilling success.
- You can’t show a person how to build a better life if they feel no pleasure in the simple act of being alive.
- …once we accept the idea that poverty is, essentially,the acceptance of meager possibility, we can’t deny that all of us are in some fashion poor. We all suffer some form of poverty – poverty of imagination, or courage, or vision, or will. We allow ourselves to be limited by our fears – fear of failure, fear of change, fear of being criticized or of looking like a fool. We convince ourselves we lack the resources, the education or the talent to pursue extraordinary goals.
- Everyone of us needs something to hope for, to change the biography of our lives.
- My goal was not to find that future outside my neighborhood. My vision was to live a meaningful life right where I was.
- And I knew what I needed to do. I would build a new center bathed in that light. I’d create a space where I could gather together everything whole and healing I had ever known in my life, where I could make myself whole and, out of that wholeness, maybe do some real good for the people who were counting on my help.
- That was the first pot I created that only I could have made. There was nothing random or arbitrary about it. It was a tangible expression of unspoken convictions I had about grace, form and beauty. I realized that I didn’t choose how to make that pot, I discovered it by discovering what was alive in me.
- An authentic life is not something we pursue, it’s something that must be created out of the passion and values that matter to us each and every day. “Now” is the only solid reality you can count on. Now is when you build a future that matters.
- Play out your dream. There is no second chance. You either choose to impact your environment or your environment will define you.
- I didn’t build Manchester Bidwell to advance my career. I didn’t build it to help poor folks, although the knowledge that it would was a great motivator. I built it because I had to build it to be the person I needed to be. I needed to shape the world around me to match the way I wanted my life to feel.
- The best way to live your life is with the assumption that your purpose on the planet is to strive, in some way appropriate to your means and your talents, to make a difference. To save, in essence, a little part of the world.
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