Wilferd Peterson was an American author who lived from 1900 to 1995 and is regarded as one of the best-loved American writers of the 20th century. He was a frequent contributor to This Week magazine, Science of Mind magazine, and Readers Digest, and his inspirational essays have inspired generations.
Wilferd Peterson also published 10 books that have been translated into many languages. These books are The Art of Getting Along (1949), The Art of Living (1961), The New Book of the Art of Living (1962, 1963), More about the Art of Living (1966), Adventures in the Art of Living (1968), The Art of Living in the World Today (1969), The Art of Living Day by Day (1972), The Art of Living Treasure Chest (1977), The Art of Creative Thinking (1991), and The Art of Living: Thoughts on Meeting the Challenge of Life (1993).
As well as writing for respected magazines and publishing books, Wilferd Peterson quotes have become synonymous with inspiration and motivation. Below you’ll find 40 of the best Wilferd Peterson quotes. I hope you enjoy them!
Wilferd Peterson Quotes
1/ “Begin today to be the person you want to be.”
2/ “Believe! Project a mental picture of your goal in life. Believing is a creative force that brings the visible out of the invisible. You must believe to achieve.”
3/ “Big thinking precedes great achievement.”
4/ “Champion the right to be yourself; dare to be different and to set your own pattern, live your own life, and follow your own star.”
5/ “Decision is often the difference between greatness and mediocrity. In every man’s life there comes a time when he must search for a cause, a work, an ideal to which he can give himself. Whether he says ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ to the challenge will determine his future.”
6/ “Decision is the courageous facing of issues, knowing that if they are not faced, problems will remain forever unanswered.”
7/ “Don’t point your finger to the heights your children should go. Start climbing and they will follow.”
8/ “Every forward step achieved by man has been due to the adventurous attitude. This attitude inspires dissatisfaction with the world as it is; it arouses the desire to change and improve things. The attitude of adventure is the flame that lights the fuse to explode new ideas.”
9/ “Each moment of your life is a brush stroke in the painting of your growing career. There are the bold, sweeping strokes of one increasing, dynamic purpose. There are the lights and shadows that make your life deep and strong. There are the little touches that add the stamp of character and worth. The art of achievement is the art of making life, your life, a masterpiece.”
10/ “Explore your mind, discover yourself, then give the best that is in you to your age and to your world. There are heroic possibilities waiting to be discovered in every person.”
11/ “Great men are little men expanded; great lives are ordinary lives intensified.”
12/ “Happiness doesn’t come from doing what we like to do but from liking what we have to do.”
13/ “He who hopes to avoid all failure and misfortune is trying to live in a fairyland; the wise man realistically accepts failures as a part of life and builds a philosophy to meet them and make the most of them. He lives on the principle of ‘nothing attempted, nothing gained’ and is resolved that if he fails he is going to fail while trying to succeed.”
14/ “Imagination inspires you to look at everything with fresh eyes, as though you had just come forth from a dark tunnel into the light of day. Imagination becomes for you a magic lamp with which to search the darkness of the unknown, that you may discover new goals or chart more productive paths to old goals.”
15/ “Imagination guides you in your contacts with individuals and crowds, so you can discover new concepts and approaches.”
16/ “Inject laughter into tense situations to save the day; laughter calms tempers and soothes jangled nerves.”
17/ “Laughter is the best medicine for a long and happy life. He who laughs lasts!”
18/ “Let me look upward into the branches of the flowering oak and know that it grew great and strong because it grew slowly and well.”
19/ “Love is the creative fire, the inspiration that keeps the torch of progress aflame.”
20/ “Many times we will get more ideas and better ideas in two hours of creative loafing than in eight hours at a desk.”
21/ “Sooner or later, a man if he is wise, discovers that life is a mixture of good days and bad, victory and defeat, give and take.”
22/ “Stay young by continuing to grow. You do not grow old, you become old by not growing.”
23/ “Success is focusing the full power of all you are on what you have a burning desire to achieve.”
24/ “Success is relative and individual and personal. It is your answer to the problem of making your minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, and years add up to a great life.”
25/ “Take time for good books; time to absorb the thoughts of poets and philosophers, seers and prophets.”
26/ “The art of achievement is the art of making life – your life – a masterpiece.”
27/ “Success is having the courage to meet failure without being defeated. It is refusing to let present loss interfere with your long-range goal.”
28/ “Success is relative and individual and personal. It is your answer to the problem of making your minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, and years add up to a great life.”
29/ “The secret of being more vitally alive is to be more aware. Starting today, from this moment, become aware of awareness!”
30/ “The supreme art of living is to strive to live each day well.”
31/ “There are no secrets of success. Success is doing the things you know you should do. Success is not doing the things you know you should not do.”
32/ “Those who hope to avoid all failure and misfortune are trying to live in a fairyland; wise people realistically accept failures as a part of life and build philosophies to meet them and make the best of them.”
33/ “Through books you can start today where the great thinkers of yesterday left off, because books have immortalized man’s knowledge. Thinkers, dead a thousand years, are as alive in their books today as when they walked the earth.”
34/ “Tolerance is understanding. It is open to new light. Those who are tolerant are always eager to explore viewpoints other than their own.”
35/ “Walk with the dreamers, the believers, the courageous, the cheerful, the planners, the doers, the successful people with their heads in the clouds and their feet on the ground. Let their spirit ignite a fire within you to leave this world better than when you found it.”
36/ “Words of encouragement fan the spark of genius into the flame of achievement.”
37/ “You hold in your hand the camel’s-hair brush of a painter of Life. You stand before the vast white canvas of Time. The paints are your thoughts, emotions and acts.”
38/ “You may plan to write a book some day, but you are living a book every day.”
39/ “You mould your character and your future by your thoughts and acts.”
40/ “You visualize yourself as the person you want to be. You strive to make the ideal in your mind become a reality on the canvas of Time.”
I hope you enjoyed these inspirational Wilferd Peterson quotes. Please share!
