acceptance

I can't write a book commensurate with Shakespeare but I can write a book by me.

No man can climb out beyond the limitations of his own character.

I have done what I could do in life and if I could not do better I did not deserve it. In vain I have tried to step beyond what bound me.

Try as hard as we may for perfection the net result of our labors is an amazing variety of imperfectness. We are surprised at our own versatility in being able to fail in so many different ways.

Do not lose courage in considering your own imperfections.

The one important thing I have learned over the years is the difference between taking one's work seriously and taking one's self seriously. The first is imperative and the second is disastrous.

May God ... let me strive for attainable things.

To wish to act like angels while we are still in this world is nothing but folly.

There is a proper balance between not asking enough of oneself and asking or expecting too much.

Learn to ... be what you are and learn to resign with a good grace all that you are not.

Despair is the price one pays for setting himself an impossible aim.

We would have to settle for the elegant goal of becoming ourselves.

As we advance in life we learn the limits of our abilities.

Growth begins when we start to accept our own weakness.

We expect more of ourselves than we have any right to.

It is only fools who keep straining at high C all their lives.

Of all the young men in America only a few hundred can get into major league baseball and of these only a handful in a decade can get into the Hall of Fame. So it goes in all human activity. ... Some become multimillionaires and chairmen of the board and some of us must be content to play baseball at company picnics or manage a credit union without pay.

What a man thinks of himself that is what determines or rather indicates his fate.