The Five Quotes I Live By

Everyone has a favorite quote, words to lean on for inspiration, consolation, reflection or perspective during life's most challenging times. The power of simple words to change the trajectory of our day or the trajectories of our lives has always amazed me, and I've collected them in notebook after notebook like a magpie for nearly 40 years.

Some words, however, carry more power for me than others. These are the five quotes I've found the most powerful:

"There are three kinds of people in this world. People who wish things would happen, people who watch things happen, and people who *make* things happen. Which kind of person do you want to be?"

- John DeRienzo, Lunchbox Napkin, ~1991

While I'm positive my father didn't come up with this one alone - Quote Investigator traces its true lineage back to a speech by the President of Columbia University in the 1930's - he did realign its contours into the bold question I found hiding one day between my Fluffernutter and a bag of Oreos. Twenty-five years later, I still think about that napkin as hard as I did when I first found it in middle school. Middle school is an impressionable time, and without question these words impressed upon me. Without this passage's fundamental truth, there would be no American dream, no world where those with a vision for the future and the drive, energy, and passion to follow it have any opportunity to actually create it. Call me an optimist, but I believe now as ever that America will always be a place for people who make things happen.

"The simplest and most practical lesson I know…is to resolve to be good today, but better tomorrow."

- Catherine McCauley, Letter to de Sales White, February 28, 1841

I came upon these words only recently, but they encapsulate more completely than any others one of my life's core principles. The best example I know of living these words comes from a great mentor of mine, Dr. Ron Paulus. He once told me that on his childhood walks to school he sought each day to decrease the total number of steps he took by at least one. He spent months continuously redesigning his route and taking longer steps, ultimately diverting by year's end through a playground because traversing the monkey bars didn't count as "steps." I knew then that in Ron I'd found a kindred spirit.

Catherine McAuley's words remind us that we are only human and therefore incapable of ever being perfect. However, they also remind us that because we can never reach perfection we will also never run out of opportunities to get better. For some that reality may seem depressing, but for me it's incredibly inspiring.

"Real progress is won by people who take the next step, not those who theorize about the 200th"

- Theodore Roosevelt, paraphrased from a letter to Lincoln Steffans, 1908

If the Venerable Mother's words articulate one of life's core principles, these paraphrased words of President Roosevelt best capture how to live it. I've seen tremendous leaders squander opportunities by overthinking and over-planning, when simply jumping in and initiating forward progress would have been all it took to nearly guarantee victory. To be clear, I'm not advocating for recklessness or mistaking random motion for progress. Instead, like I described in more detail in a piece in Modern Healthcare, delivering on the promise of continuous improvement is about figuring out where you want to go, pointing your feet in the right general direction and taking the next step. I've witnessed firsthand the power of this philosophy in action, watching teams steadily build power like a river that once wide enough can cut a path through granite on its way to the ocean. In truth, I believe there is no power greater in the hands of humans than the power of continuous improvement.

"When our days become dreary with low-hovering clouds of despair, and when our nights become darker than a thousand midnights, let us remember that there is a creative force in this universe, working to pull down the gigantic mountains of evil, a power that is able to make a way out of no way and transform dark yesterdays into bright tomorrows. Let us realize the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice."

- Martin Luther King, Address to the SCLC, August 1967

This is the longest passage I've included, but it's one that I memorized in its entirety almost fifteen years ago during an executive education program at the Kellogg School of Business. The professor that day was quoting from only the last and perhaps most famous portion of Dr. King's quote, but for me it's the remainder of the paragraph that gives the bend of our moral universe's arc is tremendous power. Dr. King reminds us there is a power that human hands cannot wield, one that is more fundamental to the nature of life and one's beliefs about eternal struggles between things like right and wrong. Again, call me an optimist but I'd rather believe we live in a world where the odds aren't invariably tilted towards the house and where sooner or later good will triumph over evil.

"But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore... I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong."

- 2 Corinthians 12:9-11 (NIV)

While I've never been particularly religious, I have always found strength in the words of St. Paul's Second Letter to the Corinthians. We can work to continuously get better, take the next step, and strive to make things happen, relying on an unending belief that the shape of our universe bends ultimately to the good. Yet in the end, because our humanity is defined by our inability to reach perfection we must accept failure, hardship, suffering and weakness as foundational aspects of life. Doing so means that in the words of Paul, we can also always find strength through our weakness and power in our powerlessness. Or perhaps you'd prefer the imitable Dumbledore, who said "Happiness can be found in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light."

Having now shared the five quotes I live by, I'm anxious to hear your thoughts and hope you'll add to the comments some of your favorites as well!

About the Author

Dr. Chris DeRienzo is a dedicated husband, a proud father, and a mediocre triathlete. He’s also a doctor dedicated to improving the health of all Americans and striving to live like a spectacle of the human engine driven at full speed. You can read more about him at www.drderienzo.com or follow him here on Twitter.