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DEDICATION

To my wonderful wife and 8 blessings who have encouraged and helped me succeed in life.

The material in this book has been collected and compiled over many years. Many of the original sources are unknown to the compiler. The compiler wishes to acknowledge the original authors, whoever they may be, but has confidence that they would urge, with him, “Do not inquire as to who said this, but pay attention to what is said.”

A special thanks to: Julie Rohrdanz For creating the amazing cover artwork .

INTRODUCTION

“Patches of Gold”- is a masterpiece of thoughts, quotes, words, wisdom and common sense that I have compiled over the last few decades ….thoughts that I hope will (heal, restore, renew and build you up over the next moment, day, week, year or lifetime)…We all have heard quotes or sayings or comments that have hurt us, or helped us, words that have refreshed and restored our hearts or wounded our souls..words, like music, can build and heal or destroy and wound…this book contains hundreds of quotes and words of wisdom and common sense, but it is more, it is a “Treasure Trove of Gold”, with some silver and gems mixed in that I have collected over the years: Words to build you up, motivate you to do better or just to inspire you on your life’s journey….“Patches of Gold”- is an excellent source of thoughtprovoking quotes and timeless words that will provide a rich “Treasure" and a bounty of insight.

Like Dolly Parton’s song “Coat of Many Colors”, it is a useful, thoughtful gift of “patches” of different sayings and wisdom to use in your life for good and strengthen your walk each day. A colorful collage of words to heal, to restore, to rebuild , to refresh and renew you heart and soul and make your day or someone’s day brighter and better…I have done the hard work of finding the “gold” your job is to use it wisely, thoughtfully and generously on your walk through life.

I hope this book reaches your soul and heals, restores, motivates and repairs any damage done by an unkind word. Use this book as a resource to do better, to be better: as a teacher, a husband or wife, as a father, or just as a person. You can make a difference by the words you speak, your words can bring life and hope or they can bring death and despair. Speak life! Speak kindness! Speak hope! Build up, don’t tear down. The following poem tells how easy it is to tear down and how quickly you can destroy a creation or a building that took years to create or

build …choose your words the same way….you can build and repair or you can destroy by your words ….Your choice. Make a difference.

“Which Are You?” -Anonymous

I watched them tear a building down; A gang of men in a busy town. With a mighty heave and a lusty yell, They swung a boom and a side wall fell.

I said to the foreman, "Are these men skilled As the men you'd hire if you had to build?" He gave me a laugh and said, "No indeed! Just a common laborer is all I need. And I can wreck in a day or two What it took the builder a year to do."

And I thought to myself as I went my way, "Just which of these roles have I tried to play? Am I a builder who works with care Measuring life by the rule and square, Or am I a wrecker as I walk the town Content with the labor of tearing down?"

This book also allows you to learn and think smarter, not harder, learning from others’ mistakes or lessons so you can excel faster to success and excellence in your endeavors.

Here are a few reasons and thoughts from a wise man called Jim Rohn:

“Nothing is more powerful for your future than being a gatherer of good ideas and information. That's called doing your homework.”

“Books are what you step on to take you to a higher shelf. The higher your stack of books, the higher the shelf you can reach. Want to reach higher? Stack some more books under your feet! Reading is what brings us to new knowledge. It opens new doors. It helps us understand mysteries. It lets us hear from successful people. Reading is what takes

us down the road in our journey. Everything you need for a better future and success has already been written.”

“It is not the hours of practice that matter...it's what you put into the hours that counts.”

“There are some things you don’t have to know how it works – only that it works. While some people are studying the roots, others are picking the fruit. It just depends on which end of this you want to get in on."

“Harvest the good fruit of others thoughts, lessons, wit, humor, build a better life and learn from others mistakes, successes, failures it will save you time, effort and troubles.”

May you find some gold nuggets and gems of wisdom on your treasure hunt. And may your life be blessed and better for having secured this treasure of wit, humor, and masterful collection of words.

SUCCESS AND CHARACTER

"Some day, in years to come, you will be wrestling with the great temptation, or trembling under the great sorrow of your life. But the real struggle is here, now, in these quiet weeks. Now it is being decided whether, in the day of your supreme sorrow or temptation, you shall miserably fail or gloriously conquer. Character cannot be made except by a steady, long continued process." -Phillip Brooks

"Judgments prevent us from seeing the good that lies beyond appearances." -Wayne Dyer

"The willow knows what the storm does not: that the power to endure harm outlives the power to inflict it." -Blood of the Martyr

"Deliberate with caution, but act with decision; and yield with graciousness, or oppose with firmness." -Charles Caleb Colton

"You need to learn how to select your thoughts just the same way you select your clothes every day." -Elizabeth Gilbert

"When it comes to life, the critical thing is whether you take things for granted or take them with gratitude." -Gilbert K. Chesterton

“Egotism:"I" strain.” -Unknown

"Brother, if any man thinks ill of you, do not be angry with him; for you are worse than he thinks you to be." -Charles Spurgeon

"The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy." -Martin Luther King, Jr.

"Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured." -Mark Twain

“Never waste a minute of your precious life by squandering it thinking or talking about people you don't like.” -Unknown

"We all do damage; Character is determined by how we repair it." -Piney Winston

"Excuses are the nails used to build a house of failure." -Jim Rohn

"Everyone is trying to accomplish something big, not realizing that life is made up of little things." -Frank A. Clark

"Often the doorway to success is entered through the hallway of failure” -Erwin W. Lutzer

"The supreme quality for leadership is unquestionably integrity. Without it, no real success is possible, no matter whether it is on a section gang, a football field, in an army, or in an office." -Dwight David Eisenhower

"The Measure of a Man"

Not "How did he die?" But "How did he live?"

Not "What did he gain?" But "What did he give?"

Not "What was his station?" But "Had he a heart?"

And "How did he play his God-given part?"

Not "What was his shrine?" Nor "What was his creed?"

But "Had he befriended those really in need?"

Not "What did the piece in the newspaper say?"

But "How many were sorry when he passed away?"

Was he ever ready with a word of good cheer, to bring back a smile, to banish a tear?

“These are the units to measure the worth, Of a man as a man, regardless of birth.” -Unknown Author

"Indecision is the greatest thief of opportunity." -Jim Rohn

Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.

"If you worry about what might be, and wonder what might have been, you will ignore what is." -Unknown

"Measure wealth not by the things you have, but by the things you have for which you would not take money." -Unknown

"It's never crowded along the extra mile." -Wayne W. Dyer

"Failure is a bruise, not a tattoo." -Jon Sinclair

"Success means doing the best we can with what we have. Success is the doing, not the getting; in the trying, not the triumph. Success is a personal standard, reaching for the highest that is in us, becoming all that we can be." -Zig Ziglar

"Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better." -Samuel Beckett

"Rule your mind or it will rule you." -Horace

"If you want to be successful, find someone who has achieved the results you want and copy what they do and you'll achieve the same results." -Tony Robbins

"Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved." -Helen Keller

"Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently." -Henry Ford

"The twin killers of success are impatience and greed." -Jim Rohn

"Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts." -Winston Churchill

“There is nothing quite so useless, as doing with great efficiency, something that should not be done at all.” -Peter Drucker

“No individual raindrop ever considers itself responsible for the flood.” -Anonymous

"It is not work that kills men, it is worry. Work is healthy; you can hardly put more on a man than he can bear. But worry is rust upon the blade. It is not movement that destroys the machinery, but friction." -Henry Ward Beecher

"I think that much of the advice given to young men about saving money is wrong. I never saved a cent until I was forty years old. I invested in myself - in study, in mastering my tools, in preparation. Many a man who is putting a few dollars a week into the bank would do much better to put it into himself." -Henry Ford

"We don't know a millionth of one percent about anything." -Thomas Edison

"Leadership is service, not position." -Tim Fargo

"Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple." -Dr. Seuss

"Don't fear the enemy that attacks you, but the fake friend that hugs you." -Unknown

"A True man does not need to romance a different girl every night, a True man romances the same girl for the rest of her life." -Ana Alas

"Even a mistake may turn out to be the one thing necessary to a worthwhile achievement." -Henry Ford

"If you can't be a good example, then you'll just have to be a horrible warning." -Catherine Aird

“Live in such a way that if someone should speak badly of you, no one would believe it.” -Zig Ziglar

"Watch your thoughts, they become your words; watch your words, they become your actions; watch your actions, they become your habits; watch your habits, they become your character; watch your character, it becomes your destiny." -Lao Tzu

"Most people give up just when they're about to achieve success. They quit on the one yard line. They give up at the last minute of the game, one foot from a winning touchdown." -H. Ross Perot

"Every human being is intended to have a character of his own; to be what no others are, and to do what no other can do."

-William Henry Channing

“Every job is a self portrait of the person who did it, Autograph, your work with excellence.” -Unknown

"Fame is a vapor, popularity an accident, and riches take wings. Only one thing endures and that is character." -Horace Greeley

"The true test of a character is to face hard conditions with the determination to make them better." -Helen Keller

“Successful people are always looking for opportunities to help others. Unsuccessful people are always asking, "What's in it for me."

-Brian Tracy

"A rich man is nothing but a poor man with money." -W. C. Fields

If in our daily life we can smile, if we can be peaceful and happy, not only we, but everyone will profit from it. This is the most basic kind of peace work.

"When the record book on you is finished, let it show your wins and losses. But don't let it show you didn't try." -Jim Rohn

"Gossip is a rumor that goes in one ear and out many mouths." -Unknown

"While we are postponing, life speeds by." -Lucius Annaeus Seneca

"Any idiot can face a crisis - its day to day living that wears you out."

-Anton Chekhov

"A bad workman quarrels with his tools." -Proverb

"Trust is built in drops and lost in buckets." -Kevin Plank

"To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded." -Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Failure can teach us lessons that success cannot." -Unknown

Harvest the good fruit of others thoughts , lessons , wit, humor, build a better life and you...learn from others mistakes , successes , failures it will save you time, effort and troubles." -Jim Rohn

"We get so worried about being pretty. Let's be pretty KIND, Pretty funny, Pretty Smart, Pretty strong." -Britt Nicole

"The measure of who we are is what we do with what we have." -Vince Lombardi

"The world is changed by your example, not by your opinion.” -Paul Coelho

"Anybody can sympathize with the sufferings of a friend, but it requires a very fine nature to sympathize with a friend's success." -Oscar Wilde

"Patience is the ability to keep your motor idling when you feel like stripping your gears." -Barbara Johnson

"Patience is a quality you admire in the driver behind you and scorn in the one ahead." -Unknown

"Great works are performed not by strength but by perseverance." -Samuel Johnson

"Ability will enable a man to go to the top, but it takes character to keep him there." -Anonymous

"Pick your friends but not to pieces." -Amish Proverb

"Don't be afraid of pressure. Remember that pressure is what turns a lump of coal into a diamond." -Unknown

"Six mistakes mankind keeps making century after century: Believing that personal gain is made by crushing others; Worrying about things that cannot be changed or corrected; Insisting that a thing is impossible because we cannot accomplish it; Refusing to set aside trivial preferences; Neglecting development and refinement of the mind; Attempting to compel others to believe and live as we do."

-Marcus Tullius Cicero

"A minute of thought is worth more than an hour of talk."

-John C Maxwell

"A critical spirit is like poison ivy-it only takes a little contact to spread its' poison." -Unknown

"Lazy and Poverty are cousins." -Unknown

"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts."

-Author Unknown

"Patience and perseverance have a magical effect before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish." -John Quincy Adams

"Show class, have pride, and display character. If you do, winning will take care of itself." -Coach Paul (Bear) Bryant

"I'm just preparing my impromptu remarks." -Winston Churchill

"Any man can make mistakes, but only an idiot persists in his error."

-Marcus Tullius Cicero

Ideals are like stars; you will not succeed in touching them with your hands, but like the seafaring man on the desert of waters, you choose

them as your guides, and following them, you reach your destiny."

-Carl Schurz

"Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are." -John Wooden

"Patience is not simply the ability to wait - it's how we behave while we're waiting." -Joyce Meyer

"Happiness must be cultivated. It is like character. It is not a thing to be safely let alone for a moment, or it will run to weeds."

-Elizabeth Stuart Phelps

"The capacity to learn is a GIFT; the ability to learn is a SKILL; the willingness to learn is a CHOICE." -Brian Herbert

"The past is a place of referen ce not a place of residence."

-Roy T. Bennett

"Success comes from the thousands of hours of work that no one sees." -Unknown

"We all do damage; Character is determined by how we repair it."

-Piney Winston

"Success is never owned, it is rented and the rent is DUE everyday." -Rory Vaden

"A happy life is just a string of happy moments. But most people don't allow the happy moments, because they're so busy trying to get a happy life." -Abraham Lincoln

"It is not by muscle, speed, or physical dexterity that great things are achieved, but by reflection, force of character, and judgment."

-Marcus Tullius Cicero

"Character creates a foundation upon which the structure of your talent and your life can build. If there are cracks in that foundation, you cannot build much." -John Maxwell

"Today I will do what others won’t so tomorrow I can do what others can’t." -Jerry Rice

"TOMORROW- A mystical land where 99% of all human productivity, motivation, and achievement is stored." -Unknown

"Everybody that's riding with you ain't riding for you. Let the gas run out and see who helps you push." -Unknown

Team: Together Everyone Achieves More.

"Talent may get you out on the field, but it’s attitude and effort that will keep you there." -Ken Griffey Jr.

"People with intentions make promises; people with good character keep promises." -Jay Shetty

"Success in life consists of going from one mistake to the next without losing your enthusiasm." -Winston Churchill

"It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not a weakness; that is life." -Jean Luc Picard

"Success is not final, failure in not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts." -Winston Churchill

"Leaders must be ready to lift up those who are pulling together, confront those who are dragging their oar and remove those who are drilling holes in the bottom of the boat." -Unknown

"When you fear your struggles, your struggles consume you. When you face your struggles, you overcome them." -Unknown

"Life is ten percent what happens to you and ninety percent how you respond to it." -Lou Holtz

"Of all the properties which belong to honorable men, not one is so highly prized as that of character." -Henry Clay

"Some persons are very decisive when it comes to avoiding decisions." -Unknown

"Study while others are sleeping; work while others are loafing; prepare while others are playing; and dream while others are wishing."

-William Arthur Ward

"LACK of Direction, Not Lack of time, is the problem. We all have a 24 hour days." -Zig Ziglar

"Success is not about how many people you impress; it's about how many people's hearts and lives you make an impression on." -Unknown

"You have not lived today until you have done something for someone who can never repay you." -John Bunyan

"Success occurs when Opportunity meets Preparation." -Zig Ziglar

"Success is doing ordinary things extraordinarily well." -Jim Rohn

"Honesty is an expensive gift. DO NOT expect it from cheap people." -Unknown

"Looking back over a lifetime, you see that love was the answer to everything." -Ray Bradbury

"Failure is not a single, cataclysmic event. You don't fail overnight. Instead, failure is a few errors in judgment, repeated every day."

-Jim Rohn

"Opportunity dances with those already on the dance floor." -H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

"I wish people could drink their words and realize how bitter they taste." -Unknown

"The greatness of a man is not in how much wealth he acquires, but in his integrity and his ability to affect those around him positively."

-Bob Marley

"Character maybe manifested in the great moments, but it is made in the small ones." -Phillips Brooks

"If you blame others for your mistakes and failures do you credit others with your success?" -Unknown

“A liar’s worst enemy is someone with a good memory.” -Dodinsky

Patches of Gold

PATCHES OF GOLD

DEDICATION

INTRODUCTION

SUCCESS AND CHARACTER