What Is Your FAVORITE Quote?

"Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren't." Margaret Thatcher

"Be kind. Everyone you meet is fighting some kind of a battle."

And:

"Give a man a fish, you feed him for O. day. TEACH a man to fish, you feed him for his whole life!"

Also (when people are going on and on and on and on) I have been known to say "Don't build me a clock, just tell me what time it is!"

I have three I love:

"If momma isn't happy, no one is!" ( That's my spin on "If momma ain't happy, ain't nobody happy" - I don't like the bad grammar)

"I am extraordinarily patient, provided I get my own way in the end."
- Margaret Thatcher

"A critical spirit is like poison ivy – it only takes a little contact to spread its poison."

"A mother-in-law and a daughter-in-law in the same room are like two cats in a bag." Old Yiddish Proverb.
Makes me feel better about my relationship with my MIL because apparently this has been going on for a loooooong time. :)

"Life isnt measured by the number of breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away."

"Don't cry because it is over, smile because it happened" That is my favorite :)

"You can't always get what you want." -Mick Jagger
(My favorite comeback to my kids. And they still love the song!)

"Make it work." -Tim Gunn

"I give myself such good advice... but very seldom follow it." lol

Quote is from Disney movie "Alice in Wonderland"

"Do one thing everyday that scares you." - Eleanor Roosevelt

A happy family is but an earlier heaven

"Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans" - John Lennon

Love your question! It is great to see what quotes keep us all motivated! My favorite:

Minds are like parachutes, they only function when open!

I have a couple favorites too...
"Who are you to judge the life I live? I know I'm not perfect and I don't live to be. But before you start pointing fingers, make sure your hands are clean." Bob Marley

"You see things; and you say why? But I dream things that never were and say why not" George Bernard Shaw

"To avoid criticism, do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing" Elbert Hubbard

I have many favorites and I don't know who said it first...

Everything Matters.

Don't shame your mother.

Act your age not your shoe size.

I have more, but...
YMMV
LBC

I have 2.

I know God will never give me more than I can handle, I just wish he didn't trust me so much"- Mother Teresa

"If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything." Mark Twain

An archaeologist is the best husband a woman can have. The older she gets the more interested he is in her.
Agatha Christie

I love the Mahatma Gandhi quote! And there are a lot of other quotes that I really like that have been posted here already. To add to the mix, here are two Eleanor Roosevelet quotes that really resonate with me:

"No one can make you feel inferior without your consent."

"Women are like tea bags - you can't tell how strong she is until you put her in hot water."

"A man can no more diminish God's glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word, 'darkness' on the walls of his cell."
C. S. Lewis

"I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else."
C. S. Lewis

"Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind."
Dr. Seuss

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

Chinese Proverb

"Friends cherish each other's hopes- they are kind to each other's dreams"

Thoreau

The Will of God will never take you where the Grace of God will not protect you.

Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any other. -Abraham Lincoln

Your failure to plan does not constitute my need for an emergency.

I always liked Mark Twain saying, "If God meant for us to talk more than he meant for us to listen, he would have given us two mouths and one ear."

"The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph."

"Make it happen."

When you know better, you do better.

The harder I work, the luckier I get.

I find myself worrying too often about what other people think so I try to keep this quote handy:

“You can either hold yourself up to the unrealistic standards of others, or ignore them and concentrate on being happy with yourself as you are.”

―Jeph Jacques

"God didn't promise days without pain, laughter without sorrow, sun without rain, but He did promise strength for the day, comfort for the tears, and light for the way."

This has helped me get through some very tough times.

Be careful of your thoughts. They may become words at any moment.

I have 3 FAVORITES...

"There are only two ways to live your life.
One is as though nothing is a miracle.
The other is as though everything is a miracle."
~Albert Einstein

"Making the decision to have a child is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body."
~Elizabeth Stone

Referring to babies and little children:
"It is not a slight thing when they, who are so fresh from God, love us."
~Charles Dickens

And one last "unofficial" quote from an email from a friend, that rang so very true for me...
"Behind every tear, filling my heart with more joy than I ever deserved, is my beautiful son."

I have two things I tell my kids all the time

"Just because you can doesn't mean you should." (Yes, I know you are capable of jumping off the second story balcony but that doesn't mean it is a good idea).

"Accidents are caused by people making bad choices." (I know you didn't mean to hit your sister in the head with that bat but if you hadn't thrown the bat because you were angry the accident wouldn't have happened).

"If your going to be two faced, at least make one them pretty"

by MM

"Doubt thou the stars are fire,
Doubt that the sun doth move,
Doubt truth to be a liar,
But never doubt I love."

~Shakespeare

"God only puts on your plate what you can handle"

My late Grandmother and Mother both believe in this and so do I. When I remember this I can make it through anything.

"Give a man a fish, you feed him for one day. TEACH a man to fish, you feed him for his whole life!"

What I jokingly remind my daughters "Mom is alway right"

and I'm not sure this is the exact saying "Why keep trying to fit in when you were born to stand out"

The Mind is like a parachute, it works best when opened

AND

Growing Old is Mandatory. Growing up is optional.

I have two:
"Women should not feel guilty if they are unable to breastfeed, but they should feel guilty if they are unwilling to do so, and they should be intellectually honest enough to know the difference." ---Elizabeth Gene

"Just as a woman’s heart knows how and when to pump, her lungs to inhale, and her hand to pull back from fire, so she knows when and how to give birth." ~ Virginia Di Orio

Great question!

"Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can."
-Arthur Ashe

Wonderful question!

Sayings are like little gems, and most of them invariably true, and I just learned some great new ones reading through your responses.

Now that I'm 52, I sure have been using the one about youth being wasted on the young a lot lately...

"It won't be like this for long"- line from a Darius Rucker song. Although he was talking about children growing up, I think it could be used for more things in life as well.

I use this one personally and professionally, and I share it every year with my college students at Butler U. I have a testy temper, you see...

"Good manners and soft words have brought many a difficult thing to pass."
Sir John Vanbrugh, English essayist

(or as I tell my kids, "always try it the nice way first")

Youth is wasted on the young.

"Whether you think you can or can't, you are right." Henry Ford

No one can make you feel inferior without your consent. - Eleanor Roosevelt

By the same spirit...."Seek not to change the world, but choose to change your mind about the world"

"Life is a mirror, if you frown at it, it frowns back; if you smile, it returns the greeting." -William Makepeace Thackeray

I also like (not sure where it came from)
"Be yourself, everyone else is already taken."

"Let sleeping dogs lie;children,too"!

I like "It will be alright in the end. If it's not alright, it's not the end."

On another question, Joanna F said 'to each, his own', I like that one....I also like 'no matter where you go, there you are', I like a lot of biblical quotes as well, too numerous to list, plus makes me sound preachy, but one of my favorites is certainly 'When the Good Lord Closes a door, He opens a window', which in a non-religous way just means, 'look on the bright side!' great question! thanks

'What thou lovest well remains; the rest is dross'- Ezra Pound

'"There isn't time, so brief is life, for bickerings, apologies, heartburnings, callings to account; there is only time for loving, and but an instant, so to speak, for that." Mark Twain

“Just for today I will remember that I am getting better and becoming whole. I will realize that I have more to bring to a relationship than I did yesterday. Just for today my life is beautiful, I am beautiful, and I have all I need to get through the day.” -Katherine gardner

“Being solitary is being alone well: being alone luxuriously immersed in doings of your own choice, aware of the fullness of your own presence, rather than the absence of others.” –Alice Koller

Great idea Kim.

One should command respect not demand it.

Not that you need another answer, but I often use a line from The Great Debaters with my kids: "Do what you have to do so you can do what you want to do."

Another that's been resonating a lot with me lately is "Routine is the housekeeper of inspiration."

"Until you decide you are worthy of more, you will be content with less."

"I know you believe you understand what you thought I said, but I'm not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant." --Unknown

"If it's mean to happen, it will happen easy."

"If it's supposed to be, it will."

The one I tell my kids quite frequently, and my mom told me all my life (in Norwegian, but roughly translated), is "What you don't have in your head, you must have in your feet". As in "I asked you to take your plate to the sink. You didn't and now you'll have to stop watching tv for a minute and come and do that right now. No, I don't care if you'll miss the best part. What you don't have in your head, you must have in your feet!"

Ideas have consequences.