“Unless a tree has borne blossoms in spring, you will vainly look for fruit on it in autumn.”
“The minute a man ceases to grow, no matter what his years, that minute he begins to be old.”
“The perfecting of one's self is the fundamental base of all progress and all moral development.”
“The key to growth is the introduction of higher dimensions of consciousness into our awareness.”
“The entrepreneurial approach is not a sideline at 3M. It is the heart of our design for growth.”
“All growth is a leap in the dark, a spontaneous, unpremeditated act without benefit of experience.”
“In the end, it is the person you become, not the things you have achieved, that is the most important.”
“The key to success is to keep growing in all areas of life -- mental, emotional, spiritual, as well as physical.”
“Close scrutiny will show that most ''crisis situations'' are opportunities to either advance, or stay where you are.”
“Nirvana or lasting enlightenment or true spiritual growth can be achieved only through persistent exercise of real love.”
“By depending on the great, The small may rise high. See: the little plant ascending the tall tree Has climbed to the top.”
“All growth depends upon activity. There is no development physically or intellectually without effort, and effort means work.”
“When I am grown to man's estate I shall be very proud and great. And tell the other girls and boys Not to meddle with my toys.”
“A tree trunk the size of a man grows from a blade as thin as a hair. A tower nine stories high is built from a small heap of earth.”
“Only by contending with challenges that seem to be beyond your strength to handle at the moment you can grow more surely toward the stars.”
“Progress has not followed a straight ascending line, but a spiral with rhythms of progress and retrogression, of evolution and dissolution.”
“Slow buds the pink dawn like a rose From out night's gray and cloudy sheath; Softly and still it grows and grows, Petal by petal, leaf by leaf.”
“The fatal metaphor of progress, which means leaving things behind us, has utterly obscured the real idea of growth, which means leaving things inside us.”
“Unlimited economic growth has the marvelous quality of stilling discontent while maintaining privilege, a fact that has not gone unnoticed among liberal economists.”
“I have always believed, and I still believe, that whatever good or bad fortune may come our way we can always give it meaning and transform it into something of value.”
“What is the most rigorous law of our being? Growth. No smallest atom of our moral, mental, or physical structure can stand still a year. It grows -- it must grow; nothing can prevent it.”
“Ever since I was a child I have had this instinctive urge for expansion and growth. To me, the function and duty of a quality human being is the sincere and honest development of one's potential.”
“Those who have high thoughts are ever striving; they are not happy to remain in the same place. Like swans that leave their lake and rise into the air, they leave their home and fly for a higher home.”
“The need of expansion is as genuine an instinct in man as the need in a plant for the light, or the need in man himself for going upright. The love of liberty is simply the instinct in man for expansion.”
“I don't know what it's like for a book writer or a doctor or a teacher as they work to get established in their jobs. But for a singer, you've got to continue to grow or else you're just like last night's cornbread -- stale and dry.”
“Thou mayest as well expect to grow stronger by always eating as wiser by always reading. Too much overcharges Nature, and turns more into disease than nourishment. 'Tis thought and digestion which makes books serviceable, and give health and vigor to the mind.”
“I am convinced that the world is not a mere bog in which men and woman trample themselves in the mire and die. Something magnificent is taking place here amid the cruelties and tragedies, and the supreme challenge to intelligence is that of making the noblest and best in our curious heritage prevail.”
“I will grow. I will become something new and grand, but no grander than I now am. Just as the sky will be different in a few hours, its present perfection and completeness is not deficient, so am I presently perfect and not deficient because I will be different tomorrow. I will grow and I am not deficient.”
“Every phase of evolution commences by being in a state of unstable force and proceeds through organization to equilibrium. Equilibrium having been achieved, no further development is possible without once more oversetting the A journey of a thousand miles starts in front of your feet. Whosoever acts spoils it. Whosoever keeps loses it.”
“The sculptor will chip off all unnecessary material to set free the angel. Nature will chip and pound us remorselessly to bring out our possibilities. She will strip us of wealth, humble our pride, humiliate our ambition, let us down from the ladder of fame, will discipline us in a thousand ways, if she can develop a little character, Everything must give way to that. Wealth is nothing, position is nothing, fame is nothing, manhood is everything.”