Life Credo Quotes & Sayings

I don't think I'm entirely on board with the 'do what you truly want to do' school of thought. Not without a little more nuance. There has to be an anchor in the wide-open space. Otherwise, 'doing what you truly want' isn't an authentic attempt at exploration -- it's just another hyper-individualistic credo masquerading as something grand. I mean we're all gung ho about pursuing personal freedom, but why do we want it? If we never constructively apply it to something beyond ourselves, and if it doesn't deepen our sense of connection and humanity, then what's the point? — Clara Bensen

A personal mission statement is based on Habit Two of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People called "Begin with the End in Mind." In one's life, the most effective way to begin with the end in mind is to develop a mission statement, one that focuses on what you want to be in terms of character and what you want to do in reference to contributions and achievements. It is based upon self-chosen values and principles. Victor Hugo once said, "There is nothing as powerful as an idea whose time has come." A mission statement is that idea. You may call it a credo or a philosophy; or you may call it a purpose statement. It's not important what it is called. What is important is that vision, purpose, and values are more powerful, more significant, and more influential than the baggage of the past or the accumulated noise of the present. — Stephen R. Covey

Julia arrived at "just do it" as a personal credo long before Nike snapped it up. Nothing anyone thought about her could stop her. Imagine a life in which you're never too anything for anything. Never too old to go back and get that degree. Never too uncoordinated to cut loose on the dance floor. Never too wrong-of-body to wear that swimsuit and throw yourself into the waves. — Karen Karbo

Because of this it has been possible for the play to be read, as it so often has been since the Romantic period, as a credo, an apologia pro vita sua (a justification of his own life), on the part of Shakespeare the dramatist. — William Shakespeare

No one is a greater schoolgirl in spirit than a cynic. Cynics cannot relinquish the rubbish they were taught as children: they hold tight to the belief that the world has meaning and, when things go wrong for them, they consequently adopt the inverse attitude. "Life's a whore, I don't believe in anything anymore and I'll wallow in that idea until it makes me sick" is the very credo of the innocent who hasn't been able to get his way. — Muriel Barbery

I can't say this too often - that a little humor can make life worth living. That has always been my credo. Somebody once asked me, 'What would you like your epitaph to be?' I've always said that I'd like it to be: He left people a little happier than they were when he came into the room. — Bennett Cerf

A New Orleans credo: When life gives you lemons
make daiquiris. — Chris Rose

I don't mean to say that I'm about to state my credo here on this page, but merely to affirm, sincerely for the first time in my life, my belief in man as an individual and independent entity. Certainly not independence in the everyday sense of the word, but pertaining to a freedom and mobility of thought that few people are able - or even have the courage - to achieve. — Hunter S. Thompson

It is said that I have destroyed the home of the destitute. It is forgotten that but for me the destitute could not have had this particular home. Those who were concerned with the poor had to come to me, who have never been concerned, in order to help the poor. It is believed that the poverty of the future tenants gave them a right to my work. That their need constituted a claim on my life. That it was my duty to contribute anything demanded of me. This is the second-hander's credo now swallowing the world. — Ayn Rand

Seize the night.
And I blink and feel a surge of certainty and excitement, because of course that's what one does when one wants something. One seizes it. Well, maybe not all things. Cats, for example, do not respond well to seizure. Probably girls don't, either. So this might not be a good credo in life, but for Saturday nights in general and this one in particular, it works. — Laini Taylor

Live by this credo: have a little laugh at life and look around you for happiness instead of sadness. Laughter has always brought me out of unhappy situations. — Red Skelton

A skeptical man with a credo, 'Seeing is believing'.
One day he found something so alien and said,
'I can't believe what I just saw'.
Then the other man with different credo,
'Blessed are they who believe without seeing'.
One day he found something so alien and said,
'This is blasphemy, sinful and evil'. — Toba Beta

My most basic credo is: I never said freedom was cheap. And it ain't. Never will be. It's been the highest priced and most precious commodity in my life. — Sonny Barger

I come from - I came from Wales, and it's a strong, butch society. We were in the war and all that. People didn't waste time feeling sorry for themselves. You had to get on with it. So my credo is get on with it. I don't waste time being soft. I'm not cold, but I don't like being, wasting my time with - life's too short. — Anthony Hopkins

...when today as believers in our age we hear it said, a little enviously perhaps, that in the Middle Ages everyone without exception in our lands was a believer, it is a good thing to cast a glance behind the scenes, as we can today, thanks to historical research. This will tell us that even in those days there was the great mass of nominal believers and a relatively small number of people who had really entered into the inner movement of belief. It will show us that for many belief was only a ready-made mode of life, by which for them the exciting adventure really signified by the word credo was at least as much concealed as disclosed. This is simply because there is an infinite gulf between God and man; because man is fashioned in such a way that his eyes are only capable of seeing what is not God, and thus for man God is and always will be the essentially invisible, something lying outside his field of vision. ... — Pope Benedict XVI

You can resolve to live your life with integrity. Let your credo be this: Let the lie come into the world, let it even triumph. But not through me. — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

The unwillingness to accept anything short of victory, that underlying fury, is the fundamental building block of my bottomless motivation to succeed. It is my credo in all that I do in life from battling cancer to bicycle racing. — Lance Armstrong

At the time, the question of woman's emancipation was of great interest to reformers. For the nihilist the issues were regarding work and sexual freedom. Because a woman's passport (which was used for general travel and not just travel abroad) was legally controlled by men - a father, or husband, had ultimate control of a woman's life. The nihilists solved this problem by having 'fictitious' marriages. This allowed for an emancipation of women de jure if not de facto. This resulted in women having the freedom of mobility to pursue some academic pursuits (which were curtailed during the White Terror) and some enterprise. Finally, the nihilists adopted the credo that adultery was a natural, and even desirable trait, in contrast to the spirit of their time, or their own cultural composition (i.e. they were prudes). — Anonymous