Because our gifts carry us out into the world and make us participants in life, the uncovering of them is one of the most important tasks confronting any one of us.--Elizabeth O'Connor (Eighth Day of Creation: Gifts and Creativity)

Being challenged in life is inevitable, being defeated is optional.--Roger Crawford

Life's challenges are not supposed to paralyze you, they're supposed to help you discover who you are.--Bernice Johnson Reagon

The marvelous richness of human experience would lose something of rewarding joy if there were no limitations to overcome. The hilltop hour would not be half so wonderful if there were no dark valleys to traverse.--Helen Keller

Not every challenge has to be dealt with on Monday. That's what Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday are for!-Lawrence Spindel

Of all the virtues we can learn, no trait is more useful, more essential for survival, and more likely to improve the quality of life than the ability to transform adversity into an enjoyable challenge.--Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Opportunities to find deeper powers within ourselves come when life seems most challenging.--Joseph Campbell

A powerful idea communicates some of its strength to him who challenges it.--Marcel Proust (Remembrance of Things Past)

Confront your fears, list them, get to know them, and only then will you be able to put them aside and move ahead.--Jerry Gillies

Considering how dangerous everything is, nothing is really very frightening.--Gertrude Stein

Courage can't see around corners, but goes around them anyway.--Mignon McLaughlin (The Neurotic's Notebook)

Courage, contrary to popular belief, is not the absence of fear. Courage is the wisdom to act in spite of fear.--John-Roger and Peter McWilliams (Do It! Let's Get Off our Buts)

Courage doesn't always roar. Sometimes courage is the little voice at the end of the day that says I'll try again tomorrow.--Mary Anne Radmacher

Courage is a special kind of knowledge: the knowledge of how to fear what ought to be feared and how not to fear what ought no to be feared.--David Ben-Gurion

Courage is contagious. When a brave man takes a stand, the spines of others are stiffened.--Billy Graham

Courage is doing what you're afraid to do. There can be no courage unless you're scared.--Eddie Rickenbacker

Courage is not a virtue or value among other personal values like love or fidelity. It is the foundations that underlies and gives reality to all other virtue and personal values.--Rollo May (The Courage to Create)

Dream big dreams! Imagine that you have no limitations and then decide what's right before you decide what's possible.--Brian Tracey (The Treasury of Quotes)

Dream big dreams, then put on your overalls and go out and make the dreams come true.--Fred Van Amburgh

The dream is not the destination but the journey.--Diane Sawyer

The dream is real, my friends. The failure to realize it is the only unreality.--Toni Cade Bambara

A dream is your creative vision for your life in the future. A goal is what specifically you intend to make happen. Dreams and goals should be just out of your present reach but not out of sight. Dreams and goals are coming attractions in your life.--Joseph Campbell

Dream lofty dreams, and as you dream, so you shall become. Your vision is the promise of what you shall one day be; your ideal is the prophecy of what you shall at last unveil.--James Allen

Dream manfully and nobly, and thy dreams shall be prophets.--Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton

Friendship with one’s self is all-important because, without it, one can not be friends with anyone else in the world.”

 “You must do the thing you think you cannot do.”

 “The giving of love is an education in itself.”

“Many people will walk in and out of your life, but only true friends will leave footprints in your heart.”

The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.”

 “Think as little as possible about yourself. Think as much as possible about other people.”

 “What could we accomplish if we knew we could not fail?”

 “We are afraid to care too much, for fear that the other person does not care at all.”

 “You can often change your circumstances by changing your attitude”

“With the new day comes new strength and new thoughts.”

 “Never allow a person to tell you no who doesn’t have the power to say yes.”

“If life were predictable it would cease to be life, and be without flavor.”

 “My experience has been that work is almost the best way to pull oneself out of the depths.”

“Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence.” Helen Keller

 “Never bend your head. Always hold it high. Look the world straight in the eye.” Helen Keller

The highest result of education is tolerance.” Helen Keller

 “It is hard to interest those who have everything in those who have nothing.” Helen Keller

“The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched – they must be felt with the heart.” Helen Keller

 “Walking with a friend in the dark is better than walking alone in the light.” Helen Keller

 “Knowledge is love and light and vision.” Helen Keller

 “The only thing worse than being blind is having sight but no vision.” Helen Keller

I can see, and that is why I can be happy, in what you call the dark, but which to me is golden. I can see a God-made world, not a manmade world.” Helen Keller

 “Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it.” Helen Keller

 “Faith is the strength by which a shattered world shall emerge into the light.” Helen Keller

Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see a shadow.” Helen Keller

 “Life is either a great adventure or nothing.” Helen Keller

. “It is not more vacation we need – it is more vocation.”

. What you don’t do can be a destructive force.”

 “Understanding is a two-way street.”

“People grow through experience if they meet life honestly and courageously.”

. “It takes as much energy to wish as it does to plan.”

 “Do what you feel in your heart to be right – for you’ll be criticized anyway.”

 “You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face.”

 “It isn’t enough to talk about peace. One must believe in it. And it isn’t enough to believe in it. One must work at it.”