“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us most.
We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and famous?’
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small does not serve the world.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that people won’t feel insecure around you.
We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.
It’s not just in some of us; it’s in all of us.
And when we let our own light shine,
we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear,
our presence automatically liberates others.”

…………………………………………………from Nelson Mandela’s inaugural speech, 1994

“It is not the critic who counts;
not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles,
or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.
The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena,
whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly,
who errs and comes short again and again;
because there is not effort without error and shortcomings;
but who does actually strive to do the deed;
who knows the great enthusiasm,
the great devotion,
who spends himself in a worthy cause,
who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement
and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly.
So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls
who know neither victory nor defeat.”
…………………………………………Theodore Roosevelt 23 April 1910