56 More Inspiring Quotes for Parents Raising Bilingual Children

The Spirit of the Bilingual Quest is a small post, and doesn’t receive as much traffic as other articles on this site, but it makes this very large point:

When it comes to raising bilingual children, make no mistake: As important as suitable strategies and techniques are to this quest, they’re ultimately secondary to your desire and determination, your energy and endurance. All the good ideas in the world will be for naught if they’re not firmly grounded in these underlying qualities of spirit.

This is why I write just as often about qualities of spirit as I do about strategies and techniques. Because, in the end, the strength of our spirit will be the deciding factor in the degree of our success.

Toward this end, I offer another round of inspiring quotes (with links to related posts) to help shore up your spirit for another day…

1. How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. —Annie Dillard

2. A year from now you may wish you had started today. —Karen Lamb

3. One day you will wake up and there won’t be any more time to do the things you’ve always wanted. Do it now. —Paulo Coelho

4. Your present circumstances don’t determine where you can go; they merely determine where you start. —Nido Qubein

5. Life is like a game of cards. The hand that is dealt you represents determinism; the way you play it is free will. —Jawaharlal Nehru

6. Don’t let the fear of the time it will take to accomplish something stand in the way of your doing it. The time will pass anyway; we might just as well put that passing time to the best possible use. —Earl Nightingale

7. Your future depends on many things, but mostly on you. —Frank Tyger

8. Do what you can, with what you have, where you are. —Theodore Roosevelt

9. Those who do not create the future they want must endure the future they get. —Draper L. Kaufman, Jr.

10. We must all suffer from one of two pains: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret. The difference is discipline weighs ounces while regret weighs tons. —Jim Rohn

11. What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us. —Ralph Waldo Emerson

12. How committed are you? There is a remarkable difference between a commitment of 99% and 100%. —Vic Conant

13. The starting point of all achievement is desire. Weak desire brings weak results. —Napoleon Hill

14. Success is not the result of spontaneous combustion. You must first set yourself on fire. —Fred Shero

15. You may never know what results come from your action. But if you do nothing, there will be no result. —Gandhi

16. Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt. —William Shakespeare

17. Know what you want to do, hold the thought firmly, and do every day what should be done, and every sunset will see you that much nearer the goal. —Elbert Hubbard

18. You put your time where your priority is. —Sebastian Faulks

19. You always do what you want to do. This is true with every act. You may say that you had to do something, or that you were forced to, but actually, whatever you do, you do by choice. Only you have the power to choose for yourself. —W. Clement Stone

20. It is in your moments of decision that your destiny is shaped. —Anthony Robbins

21. People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing. That’s why we recommend both daily. —Zig Ziglar

22. If you pump casually, you will pump forever. Pump hard to begin with and keep it up until you get that water flowing. Then a great deal will happen. —Zig Ziglar

23. Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out. —Robert Collier

24. The easiest success measurement tool is a simple question. What did you do today to move forward? The easiest project plan on earth is also a simple question. What will you do tomorrow to move forward? At the end of each day, document your success and design your next move. —Rich DiGirolamo

25. Each day, and the living of it, has to be a conscious creation in which discipline and order are relieved with some play and some pure foolishness. —May Sarton

26. Today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday. —Mark Twain
(25 Tips from Mark Twain for Parents Raising Bilingual Kids)

27. Look at frustration as a positive thing. It is the frustration that drives you to improve. —John Lyons
(What Frustrates Me About Raising Bilingual Children)

28. The mind, ever the willing servant, will respond to boldness, for boldness, in effect, is a command to deliver mental resources. —Norman Vincent Peale

29. If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude. Don’t complain. —Maya Angelou

30. Quickly say, “That’s good!” to every setback and adversity, and then find out what is good about it. —Brian Tracy

31. Always remember that you are bigger than the moment, you are more than anything that could ever happen to you. —Anthony Robbins

32. Every problem has a limited life span. —Robert Schuller

33. Being defeated is often a temporary condition. Giving up is what makes it permanent. —Marilyn Vos Savant

34. Some defeats are only installments to victory. —Jacob Riis

35. When defeat comes, accept it as a signal that your plans are not sound. Rebuild those plans and set sail once more toward your coveted goal. —Napoleon Hill

36. I cannot change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination. —Jimmy Dean

37. It takes a habit to replace a habit. —Napoleon Hill

38. You may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing that we call failure is not the falling down, but the staying down. —Mary Pickford

39. It’s always too early to quit. —Norman Vincent Peale

40. Effort only fully releases its reward after a person refuses to quit. —Napoleon Hill

41. Look at a stone cutter hammering away at his rock, perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred-and-first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not the last blow that did it, but all that had gone before. —Jacob Riis
(Important Thoughts on Babies and Hammers)

42. So long as there is breath in me, that long I will persist. For now I know one of the greatest principles of success; if I persist long enough I will win. —Og Mandino
(The One Thing You Absolutely, Positively Must Have to Raise a Bilingual Child)

43. At any given moment you have the power to say: This is not how the story is going to end. —Christine Mason Miller

44. Become a possibilitarian. No matter how dark things seem to be or actually are, raise your sights and see the possibilities, always see them for they are always there. —Norman Vincent Peale

45. Never despair; but if you do, work on in despair. —Edmund Burke

46. If all you can do is crawl, start crawling. —Rumi

47. Don’t let anybody tell you that you can’t do it. You can. It’s up to you. Decide to do it and follow through. —Porter Freeman

48. When you get right down to the root of the meaning of the word succeed, you find that it simply means to follow through. —F. W. Nichol

49. I have always been delighted at the prospect of a new day, a fresh try, one more start, with perhaps a bit of magic waiting somewhere behind the morning. —J.B. Priestly

50. Give to the world the best you have. And the best will come back to you. —Madeline Bridges

51. Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible. —Dalai Lama

52. One life stamps and influences another, which in turn stamps and influences another, on and on, until the soul of human experience breathes on in generations we’ll never meet. —Mary Kay Blakely
(Your Efforts Today Have a Profound Impact on Tomorrow)

53. The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places. —Ernest Hemingway

54. Keep cool. It will be all gone a hundred years hence. —Ralph Waldo Emerson

55. We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars. —Oscar Wilde

56. Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things. —Robert Brault

How about you? What other quotes keep you strong and moving forward, day by day?