Daisaku Ikeda

Daisaku Ikeda has been a very successful person in his life so far. He was born on January 2nd, 1928 in Tokyo, Japan. He struggled living through his teens due to tuberculosis, which was a leading cause of deaths during the time. He was devastated by the attacks on his country in World War II, this gave him the idea to work for peace. Yes, in case you were wondering, he is indeed still alive. Which means, currently he is 83 years old.
The quote I have on my list from this remarkable man is, "The determination to win is the better part of winning." Which, obviously this quote is a no brainer. Always feeling the thrill is more than likely what makes us want to win again. Or perhaps the challenge. I might have to slightly disagree with Daisaku though, simply because there are different types of winning to be said. First, there is the simple challenge from one friend to another. That I would say would definetly fit in with his quote. But a challenge against somebody you do not know, that can be another story, or possibly even trying to win a tournament. Because at that very point in time you are trying to win the tournament, yes the thrill is fun, but the thrill of actually winning the entire thing. I would say that is what would make me want to go again, is being able to win. Though it is still fun to face a friend, and just feel that impulse of not knowing who is going to win or who is not.

Winston Churchill

Of course, we all know who Winston Churchill is. He was the leader of the British army during World War 2. But he did so much more than that. Churchill was born in 1874, he lived a long life, filled with fulfillment. He was appointed the First Lord of Admiralty, also the Prime Minister, and the Minister of Defense, also remaining a member of Parliment for the remainder of his life. After getting all of these great achievements, he was deemed a knight by Queen Elizabeth the second, also being made a United States citizen, by John F. Kennedy in 1963. He was awarded great honors in his life time and he definetly deserved them. He died on January 24th, 1965, only being a knight for two years. But I still think this was a cool guy. I would have liked to meet him in life if I was alive back then.
Onto the quote, Winston wrote, " Success is not fatal, failure is not fatal; it is the courage to continue that counts." Obviously, it is saying that no matter how successful you are or how much you fail, never give up hope. There may always be the chance that you will make the achievement you have been trying to reach.
I try this out a lot, it helps me with school. When I fail something, i go straight to the teacher after school, and ask him for help. It's as simple as that. They always say yes, unless they say otherwise, but that should not happen becasue you should never give up, whether your in a bad mood, having a bad day, your girlfriend broke up with you, it does not matter, go have fun, before you grow 2 old and can not, do those things that children usually do.

Marie O'Conner

So the first thing I found out about this quote while looking up the background information for her was, her name is Mary O'Conner not Marie, which means my source messed up which I think is messed up. But also if I look up Mary O'Conner it wants to give me this woman who was in Playboy apparently, so just warning you incase you ever want to look her up. After doing some more digging past the Playboy woman, and the fake name I found that there was a Mary O'Conner, she was born on March 25th, 1925 in Savannah, Georgia, and she lived until August 3rd, 1964. Her father died in 1941 of Lupus. She became a famous novelist, and writer. She wrote a total of two novels and a lot of essays. She went to the University of Iowa to study journalism. In her family, it was Lupus was hereditary, in which she ended up getting in 1930, dieing in 1964.
The quote I have of hers says, "It's not so much how busy you are, but why you are busy. The bee is praised; the mosquito is swatted." In my opinion, i take this as her saying if you do not want to be busy, then do not be busy. You are always busy, hence the busy bee, the bee is praised. You may annoy someone because of you being so busy all of the time, and which I take as the "mosquito is swatted."
In my daily life, I am not always so busy, not running around wise but doing homework wise I am always busy. At this very moment I am doing homework for a class, instead of hanging out with my dear friends, since it is the weekend. I'm sure they get slightly annoyed by that. But, I hope they understand that this is the way things have to be in order for good grades. Aside from that, I know of some other people that are normally busy. Someone in my family, seems to always be busy. They run around doing everything on their agenda, all the time. Which I do not know if that is a good or bad thing, because if you ever want to get out of the house, they are always there. But if you just want to stay home and watch television, then they most likely are not.

Civil Rights Leader

My last post of the week will be over another man that you all have heard of. His name is Martin Luther King Jr. He was the Civil Rights Leader during the 1950's and 1960's. If it was not for him, things could still be how they were back then...segregated. Our mind sets would be changed to think that African Americans are not equal to white people. I just think that this is a little exotic and makes me wish I lived in that time period to have been able to see it for myself. This man was definitely one of the most important people in American history. He was born on January 15th, 1929 and died on April 4th, 1968.
His quote that I have here says, "We must accept finite disappointment, but we must never lose infinite hope." I can see him saying a quote like this in his time. Because to him throughout his entire life he had to face disappointment. Everytime he heard about black men being slaughtered, or never being allowed to sit at the front of the bus. But he never lost hope, he became the Civil Rights Leader and with his help (though he was never able to see it), stopped segregation. So for all of us who think that because I lost this or failed this one test...It is not the end of the world. We could have it worse, like King and Rosa Parks.
I have used this quote a million times, it is something that I think most of us just naturally do to better ourselves. To make us happier. When I fail my tests I have to make myself feel better somehow. And just like you see on the movies, someone comes by and talks them into snapping out of it, by giving them hope. That is something that I would like to do because it makes me a better person, and I want to look up to Martin Luther King Jr. So i will follow his example. He was truly a remarkable man and everyone should hear about his story for the next 500 years.

Francesca Reigler

Francesca Reigler is the next person on my list. I can not find any background information on her. So sorry to disappoint, but I do not know when her time period is or when she was born, or any of that. Her quote was "Happiness is an attitude. We either make ourselves miserable, or happy and strong. The amount of work is the same." I find this to be a very interesting quote. And it seems really meaningful and true. I would personally agree with her. I believe I said this once, but I learned something in psychology a few weeks ago. But we do make our own moods. If you are looking to be sad that day, then you are going to get it. If you are looking to be a happy and enthusiastic person the next...you got it! Now what I think Francesca means is that obviously happiness is an attitude, but the work to be happy. Sometimes it can be tough, especially if you are having a bad day and I understand that. But instead of sulking in yourself, why not not waste your life and go out and have fun. There is more to life then simply missing that ex boyfriend or girlfriend that broke up with you last week. You have friends that you could be enjoying at this very moment. Though it may take some work to get in a better mood, why not go looking for some fun, to make that happy attitude.
Personally I use this all the time. I have a hard time on the tests in my Psychology class, and it always makes me in a sad or bad mood, when I try as hard as I could possibly do, and get my grade back only to look at an F or a D-. Happens almost everytime. But I go to my next class and decide that sad is not what I want to be. I am wasting my time on it. So I decide to talk to the person next to me, or even listen to my teacher, because he is cool. These always cheer me up, and even though I was upset for maybe a half hour I'm over it, and advise other people to go off of my example, because "Happiness is an attitude. We either make ourselves miserable, or happy and strong. The amount of work is the same."

The King of Rock n' Roll

Of course we all know who the King of Rock n' Roll is...It is none other than Elvis Presley. He is the one who shaped what todays rock, hard rock, metal and other types of music came to be. Born on January 8th, 1935 died at the age of 42 on August 16th, 1977. The reasons...an overdose on his sleeping pills. For his life time he was definetly the most popular musician of his time. Though he stopped music for 10 or so years to make movies, he came back on. After his death, he became more popular then what he was alive. He sold millions of albums, and won music oscars. Today, from August 10th through the 16th there is an Elvis Week in Memphis, Tennessee, outside of Graceland (Elvis' mansion). Where still to this day, despite his death was almost 34 years ago, hundreds of thousands of fans gather for 6 days to appreciate his memory.
Now onto the quote...Elvis said "Ambition is a dream with a V8 engine." What I think he meant by this is ambition is something that people love to do. So work for it. Work for your dreams. Because, without ambition what are you in life? Maybe, someone that sits on the couch watching TV and eating potato chips nearly everyday.
I personally like this quote, because first, it taught me what the word ambition meant. And being a fan of Elvis myself...makes me look up to him more as being a fun warm-hearted guy. I would consider for anyone to take this quote into consideration, or more likely any of Elvis' quotes. Because he was a smart man that had seen lots of things. Though he died before his time, he still managed to touch the lives of everyone he met, even if they did not realize it at the time.

Muriel Strode

I have a quote by a woman named Muriel Strode, I've never heard of her, but after doing some research it appears that she is known for her quotes this is probably her most famous one, "Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail." I like this quote inparticularly because, it kind of represents me and probably any sibling with a big brother or sister. When I was a boy, I wanted to be just like my big brother...literally. There almost was not a shirt that he had that I did not have. I even got my haircut the same way (even though I didn't know any other haircuts anyways). But the point is later my brother started getting into things that I myself was not into myself, and I did not want to follow him down this path. So I branched off, and started being my own person. For the first time in my life I went to the store and bought clothes that I liked, not that I did not like the ones I used to wear, but this was the beginning of a new era for me, something new sounded...well, good. Ever since then I've been doing pretty good, I have a great girlfriend, I fit in with my friends even more than I used to, and it is even easier to make friends. So, even before I read this quote I followed what Muriel said, and I thank her for that.
Some other points of interest I would have to say is that this quote can obviously mean more than one thing, depends on how you take and relate it to your life once you've read it. It can be refering to how you may bring up your kids. That's just an idea that I've got. But I'm sure there are more out there if I were to ask around.
There was not much information on her background, but what I've got is she was born in 1875. She was the second of four children, she was an American poet and writer, and died in 1930. Her most famous quote is the one at the top.
Thank you for reading, there will be three more quotes up next week!

the very second quote

My second quote for my new blog is by a woman named Corra Harris who was famous in the early twentieth century. She lived in Georgia, and wrote hundreds of essays and made thousands of book reviews. She was born in eighteen sixty-nine and died in ninteen thirty-five. Within the time she married a man named Lundy Harris and had three children, Faith Harris was the only one to survive past infancy, but later died in nineteen-nineteen. Corra outlived her daughter by sixteen years. Corra's quote that I have found says, "The bravest thing you can do when you are not brave is to profess courage and act accordingly."
first we must decide what this quote means. I think it means that for the people that are not as brave as others, should fake it and act upon it, so appear to be brave. To me this is not that meaningful of a quote, because I know that I am brave, but to those of you that are not brave out there, you might want to take some of this advice. Some important situations that would help you under these circumstances are, if you might be about to get into a fight, you would definetly want to seem brave there. Or to fake being brave before you give a speech so your not so nervous. I know these are easier said then done, but it could help. One more thing that I just started thinking about. How do you act brave, and not be brave. I guess an example is in the movies, when theres always the big tough guy around, and when the group of people have a big problem on their hands, this "big tough guy" runs and hides out of fear. Sounds pretty logical to me. But to me I would not take this advice, because you don't want someone to depend on you thinking your brave when your really not, so if your standing there watching them get beaten in a fight, they will know that person will come to their aid, not be selfish and run for their lives.

The first quote

My quote for this day is "Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm" by: Ralph Waldo Emerson. Alright so there is probably not as many people out there that know about Emerson as there probably should be. But as we know, he was born in 1803 and died in 1882. He was probably one of the most important American essayists in our history. He wrote many essays, and was influenced by Montaigne. Some of his works were "Education, Self-Reliance, and The American Scholar".
To the point, what do I think this quote means, well I can give you a story. I am in a psychology class and the other day we were talking about how if your going around looking for things to critique then your going to find things that you can critique, and if you go around looking for happy things... your going to go around finding happy things, this is a simple phrase called mind set. So some examples are Thomas Edison, who spent hundreds of hours simply trying to invent a working lightbulb. He made thousands of them until he stummbled upon the right way eventually. If he was not motivated and enthusiastic to make a light bulb, we may not have any to this day. That was some thing great in my opinion. Or another example is Albert Einstein, he made many theories, and invented many things, not because he was bored...Because he was enthused to do so. He wanted to. And all of us know that Albert Einstein did many great things. One last example I can use is Adolf Hitler, definetly someone who did great things "terrible...But great" (Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone Ollivander said in the wand shop). Adolf Hitler took over almost all of Europe and nearly brought the worlds booming powers to their knees. Scary I know. But do you think he did those things simply because there was nothing else to do...NO, of course not. So these are the things that Emerson meant, these things are not just something people want to do to pass the time, great things only happen if someone is enthused to continue on something that their interested in.
So my opinion for you all is when you go out tonight in your sad or mad moods, think about something happy, get yourself into a better mind set. Who knows maybe you'll come across something that will amaze all of mankind.

New Way

Alright so I'm going to try this again, (my blog wouldnt let me publish it), but my main point is tht I am changing my blog. I've come to realize over the past few weeks that the whole reviewing movies and books isn't quite working for me as I planned. Because of the lack of time that I've got, I don't have time to read a whole book or two in one week. Between school and two jobs, it's just not possible for me. Plus, because of these reasons, I'm afraid that I haven't been able to be as accurate as I would have liked. So I decided that changing it would be for the best. So my new way is to go over quotes of people that are semifamous or even famous. I'm going to try and apply these quotes to my life, or stories out there. More than likely give a little background information on the people who said the quotes themselves. So this will be to my new blog, and I know it will be a bit more interesting for my fellow readers. Taking any suggestions of information that I can do. Thank you!