Leaving Things Better Than You Found Them Quotes & Sayings

George W. Bush was a very bad president. The Iraq war was a big mistake. The U.S.A. needed a political change. I hoped Barack Obama could be a good president, but I'm disappointed. He hasn't done well. — Marc Rich

Enjoyment appears at the boundary between boredom and anxiety, when the challenges are just balanced with the person's capacity to act. — Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Communism is trying to take the world by force. But God will take the world by love. — Sun Myung Moon

When she's gone, Tom dares to look at Sam and then the ultrasound photo again. You've fathered the elephant man. Someone has to tell her. — Melina Marchetta

It's true that the hatred is still there. But it doesn't change anything. Our obligations are the same - to live and sanctify all life with our own. To participate in the world the best we know how, leaving it a better place than we found it. To raise families and teach our children to value life. What more can we do? Should we refuse to live because of the threat of death hanging over us? We've always been under sentence of death. Every generation that lives out its days in peace is a victory. Every day we live is a victory. — Ovadya Ben Malka

I don't have the temperament of a performer, and I certainly couldn't do it every night. — Tom Lehrer

Life is not about winning the race. Life is about finishing the race, and how many people we can all help finish this race. How we can start being kinder to each other — Marc Mero

He had strong, steady hands, and I could tell from looking at them there was little he couldn't do. Mossy always said you could tell everything you needed to know about a man from his hands. Some hands, she told me, were leaving hands. They were the wandering sort that slipped into places they shouldn't, and they would wander right off again because those hands just couldn't stay still. Some hands were worthless hands, fit only to hold a drink or flick ash from a cigar, and some were punishing hands that hit hard and didn't leave a mark and those were the ones you never stayed to see twice.
But the best hands were knowing hands, Mossy told me with a slow smile. Knowing hands were capable; they could soothe a horse or woman. They could take things apart
including your heart
and put them back together better than before. Knowing hands were rare, but if you found them, they were worth holding, at least for a little while. — Deanna Raybourn

Showing a profit means touching something and leaving it better than you found it. — Jim Rohn

The white-haired wonder leading what had to, by now, be a blocks-long parade must've finally turned on her hearing aid. Because she finally pulled into the United Methodist Church parking lot, praise God, leaving the rest of us free to party until some other octogenarian found it necessary to take to the streets after dark. In Ohio, old folks know better than to drive at night. Yet another reason Cleveland rocks. — Jennifer Rardin

A few well-designed movements, properly performed in a balanced sequence, are worth hours of doing sloppy calisthenics or forced contortion. — Joseph Pilates

Fashion is the pursuit of perfection, Style is the acceptance of one's flaws. — Francesco Clemente

The more you lose the right to be jealous, the more so you become! — George Sand

I'm really disturbed by the degree to which I don't hear people saying, "Are we leaving the world better than we found it?" I think we are a generation that perhaps could not answer in the affirmative, and it is the evasion of the larger responsibility of being only one generation in what one hopes will be an infinite series of fruitful generations. There is a selfishness in refusing to understand that we are passing through; others will come, and they deserve certain courtesies and certain considerations from us. — Marilynne Robinson

Great business leaders of our time stand above the crowd not because of what they do, but what they don't do. — Shawn Casemore

All depressions are caused by government interference and the cure is always offered to take more of the poison that caused the disaster. Depressions are not the result of a free economy. — Ayn Rand

All my life I had lived on the presumption that there was no existence beyond ... flesh, the moment of being alive ... then nothing. I had searched in superstition ... But there was nothing. Then I heard the sound of my own life leaving me. It was so ... tender. I regretted that I had paid it no attention. Then I believed in the wisdom of what other men had found before me ... I saw that those simple things might be true ... I never wanted to believe in them because it was better to fight my own battle. You can believe in something without compromising the burden of your own existence. — Sebastian Faulks

Leadership is less about the position you hold than the influence you have. It's about doing world-class work, playing at your peak,
and leaving people better than you found them. It's about Leading Without a Title. — Robin Sharma

The "etiquette of freedom," to use poet Gary Snyder's phrase. It encompasses small acts like teaching your children to be honest in their dealings with others. It includes serving on community councils and as soccer coaches. It means leaving a place in better shape than you found it. It means helping others during hard times and being able to ask for help. It means resisting the temptation to call a problem someone else's. — Eric Liu

But it wasn't just about my feelings. The more I got to know you, the more I was certain that you'd do whatever it took to provide for your family. That was important to me. You have to understand that back then, a lot of people our age wanted to change the world. Even though it's a noble idea, I knew I wanted something more traditional. I wanted a family like my parents had, and I wanted to concentrate on my little corner of the world. I wanted someone who wanted to marry a wife and a mother, and someone who would respect my choice. — Nicholas Sparks

Not all breaks are clean. Sometimes we crumble, sometimes we erode. And those erosions, Eppie-the ones that chip away at our hopes and dreams and out plans for the futures-those are often a lifetime in the making. It's those we must watch out for, my dear. — Megan Squires

Education is for improving the lives of others and for leaving your community and world better than you found it. — Marian Wright Edelman

so-and-so is using?' You just knew. I never held it against anyone. It was one of those things where you knew they were just trying to keep their jobs, extend their careers. I guess I didn't — John Feinstein

I liked being a person. I wanted to keep at it. — John Green