First Step Quotes

Employing your imagination is the first step to the fulfillment of any dream. ~ Richelle E. Goodrich

Recognizing that something is wrong is the first step toward changing the world. ~ Shane Claiborne

Schools are in many ways perhaps the first step in getting us to understand that institutions control our lives and that we should accept unquestionably that there can be no objection to this. ~ Mango Wodzak

Life is full of risks...that first step of faith was often taken neck-deep in fear. ~ Tamera Alexander

Why did so many teenagers fall for Stanley Horowitz's tricks?"
"These were impressionable teenagers," Nick explained. "Many of them were devoted fans of romantic Vampyre stories. They over-romanticized what it means to be a Vampyre, and that gave Stanley a way to manipulate them."
"I've read Twilight," Tamara said. "My daughter is a huge fan. Is she in any danger?"
"The danger arises from wanting to belong to the in crowd so badly, you lose sight of what's real and what's fantasy."
"Surely today's teenagers know that vampires are fantasy," Tamara said.
"Possibly. But remember, Vampyres are not romantic. Vampyres are dead. They are walking reminders of tragedy. Loving one is necrophilia. And wanting to be one is the first step on the road to catastrophe. ~ Abramelin Keldor

Adversity is a call to action, and your freedom lies in taking the first step. Don't worry about the entire staircase, just take one step, and then tomorrow take another. ~ Kris Carr

A brick could be placed down on the first step on the path to enlightenment. ~ Jarod Kintz

The truth is that we are not yet free; we have merely achieved the freedom to be free, the right not to be oppressed. We have not taken the final step of our journey, but the first step on a longer and even more difficult road. For to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others. The true test of our devotion to freedom is just beginning. ~ Nelson Mandela

The first step toward spiritual growth is to become aware of your emotions. ~ Gary Zukav

There was one story that anger certainly lit the fuse of. In the 1960's, in my home town of Jackson, the civil rights leader Medgar Evers was murdered on night in darkness and I wrote a story that same night about the murderer (identity unknown) called "Where Is The Voice Coming From?" But all that absorbed me, though it started as outrage, was the necessity I felt for entering into the mind and inside the skin of a character who could hardly have been more alien or repugnant to me. Trying for my utmost, I wrote in the first person. I was wholly vaunting the prerogative of the short-story writer. It is always vaunting, of course, to imagine yourself inside another person, but it is what a story writer does in every piece of work; it is his first step, and his last too, I suppose. I'm not sure this story was brought off; and I don't believe that my anger showed me anything about human character that my sympathy and rapport never had. ~ Eudora Welty

The first step in gaining the upper hand is always to seize the moral high ground, and to be able to do this with no more than a single word is nothing short of genius. I ~ Alan Bradley

Awakening is about introducing a child to sensory experiences, including tastes. It doesn't always require the parent's active involvement. It can come from staring at the sky, smelling dinner as it's being prepared, or playing alone on a blanket. It's a way of sharpening the child's senses and preparing him to distinguish between different experiences. It's the first step toward teaching him to be a cultivated adult who knows how to enjoy himself. Awakening is a kind of training for children in how to profiter - to soak up the pleasure and richness of the moment. ~ Pamela Druckerman

The first step in wisdom is to know the things themselves; this notion consists in having a true idea of the objects; objects are distinguished and known by classifying them methodically and giving them appropriate names. Therefore, classification and name-giving will be the foundation of our science. ~ Carl Linnaeus

I've been researching it. I listed to an interview with an actual astronaut on the radio. He said that when he was young and made up his mind that he wanted to go to space, the first thing he did was to figure out all the small steps he would need to take to get there. Because lots of small steps, if they're good ones, can take you a long way if you're heading in the right direction. What most people don't do, this astronaut said, was to even take that first step – or if they do, they fail to plan the complete route to where they really want to be. Most people, he said, just stagger through life, one random step in one random direction at a time. But I've done it. I know what I want and how to get there. Now I just need to do it.
Pg 278 ~ James T. Guthrie

To move forward, you must first take a step ~ Chase S.M. Neill

That, in brief, is the problem - criticism as the first step in a discussion stops the discussion and is therefore, generally the last step as well. It is an entirely different matter if I hear the other person first, understand what she is trying to do, then talk with her about better ways to do it. ~ R. Brian Stanfield

The first step in any Journey, Is the belief that the road will open up in front of you even if you cant see it.... ~ Meg Gherson

The first step in accomplishing any goal was deciding that it was possible. ~ Tom Clancy

Once you got started, all you had to do was keep placing one foot in front of the other, no matter how happy or sad you were. I'd taken that first step because I'd wanted to look better. I'd wanted my clothes to fit. But it hadn't taken me long to figure out that the biggest benefit was less about vanity than it was about sanity. Walking always helped. ~ Claire Cook

There's no secret to getting started. You simply decide and
then take your first step. With each subsequent step, the next
one becomes easier... ~ Tom Venuto

To change the world, Start with one step. However small, the first step is hardest of all. ~ Dave Matthews

Asking is the first step in the Creative Process, so make it a habit to ask. ~ Rhonda Byrne

Legalizing homosexuality is not the first step on a slippery slope to legalizing everything. ~ Jonathan Haidt

Doom scenarios, even though they might be true, are not politically or psychologically effective. The first step ... is to make us love the world rather than to make us fear for the end of the world. ~ Gary Snyder

Have the courage to follow your dreams. It's the first step towards attaining your destiny. ~ Nikita Koloff

The first step is learning to monitor your thoughts; to think about what you are thinking about. ~ Neale Donald Walsch

Isolation is the first step of revolution. ~ Yash Thakur

Truth is not negative. Truth helps us see things from a fresh perspective. Truth educates, creates awareness, and is the first step to initiating any real and lasting change. ~ Tonya Sheridan

SHE holds the hand to help you in your First Step,
She is your First Teacher,
SHE holds your hand when You Fall Down,
SHE is the one who guides you in Life,
SHE hides you from all Trouble,
SHE is sometime Mentor,
SHE even nurses you when you Fall ill,
SHE gives you the confidence,
SHE never give False Appreciation,
SHE is the one who will scold you the most on your mistake,
She is the one who even Fight for you when you are right,
SHE is the one who believes in you when others do not,
SHE is the one who Loves you even if You don't love her,
SHE is the one who gave you LIFE,
Do You know Who is 'SHE'??
'SHE' is Mother your own MOM ... ~ Debolina Bhawal

And perhaps our awareness is the first step to our liberation. ~ Stanley Milgram

Taking birth itself is the first step to death... ~ Vaishakh Purushothaman

The most difficult step in the study of language is the first step. ~ Leonard Bloomfield

I thought women enjoyed affairs. I thought they got sparks of pleasure at the buzz of their phone, thought they ran around with a glow, their world suddenly on fire with new love. I thought they were women with terrible husbands and unhappy lives, an affair the first step in an eventual ending of their marriage. I thought that they were horrible, selfish women. I never thought that I would be one of them. I never thought that I'd be so weak. It turned out being the perfect wife was only easy when there was no temptation, no mistake haunting and overshadowing your marriage. ~ Alessandra Torre

That's the thing about slippery slopes. Take that first step, and the next thing you know, you've completed a jerk-off hat trick to your bestie. ~ Lauren Blakely

It'll be your first step towards healing, she'd said.
But it hurts too much to give her up, he'd argued.
Sometimes the medicine you take to recover is bitter. ~ Michelle Elaine Lowe

Being aware of yourself and choosing your behavior is the first step towards powerful life change. ~ Iben Dissing Sandahl

The acknowledgment of our weakness is the first step in repairing our loss. ~ Thomas A Kempis

Admission of ignorance is often the first step in our education. ~ Stephen R. Covey

Sacrifice of the self is the source of all humiliation, as also on the contrary is the foundation of all true exaltation. The first step will be an inward gaze - an isolating contemplation of ourselves. Whoever stops here has come only halfway. The second step must be an active outward gaze - autonomous, constant observation of the external world.
No one will ever achieve excellence as an artist who cannot depict anything other than his own experiences, his favorite objects, who cannot bring himself to study assiduously even a quite strange object, which does not interest him at all, and to depict it at leisure. An artist must be able and willing to depict everything. This is how a great artistic style is created, which rightly is so much admired in Goethe. ~ Novalis

You take the cards you're dealt. I'm now ferociously healthy in body and mind. You couldn't pay me to go near a psychiatrist again. Stopping seeing them was my first step to getting well. ~ Margot Kidder

I have a strong hips and groin. It's the leg speed, the way I approach the ball. My first step is not very hard, but my second is explosive. ~ Sebastian Janikowski

Your first step in taking responsibility is to quit blaming others and quit blaming the world. You must accept that opportunity is everywhere. Opportunity is all the time. It does not disappear in the difficult times, in fact it's even greater. ~ Robert T. Kiyosaki

The first step in becoming smarter was to admit what a dumbass you were. ~ Maya Banks

Toxic pheromone pollution. How can we combat that?" Charles Groh and I looked at each other. This was it. We'd finally arrived at the hard part. What had to be done. "The first step," I said, "would be removing the factors that are causing the environmental disturbance." "Remove petroleum products?" said the president. "And cell phones?" said the secretary of state. I nodded at both of them, then looked out at the faces around the table and on the screens. ~ James Patterson

I do not write this in a spirit of sourness or personal disappointment of any kind, nor do I have any romantic attachment to suffering as a source of insight or virtue. On the contrary, I would like to see more smiles, more laughter, more hugs, more happiness and, better yet, joy. In my own vision of utopia, there is not only more comfort, and security for everyone - better jobs, health care, and so forth - there are also more parties, festivities, and opportunities for dancing in the streets. Once our basic material needs are met - in my utopia, anyway - life becomes a perpetual celebration in which everyone has a talent to contribute. But we cannot levitate ourselves into that blessed condition by wishing it. We need to brace ourselves for a struggle against terrifying obstacles, both of our own making and imposed by the natural world. And the first step is to recover from the mass delusion that is positive thinking. ~ Barbara Ehrenreich

Modern English, especially written English, is full of bad habits which spread by imitation and which can be avoided if one is willing to take the necessary trouble. If one gets rid of these habits one can think more clearly, and to think clearly is a necessary first step toward political regeneration: so that the fight against bad English is not frivolous and is not the exclusive concern of professional [or scholarly] writers. ~ George Orwell

The first step of any journey must be taken with daring in your heart. Don't let fear clog your arteries. ~ T.S. Welti

Steps can be special and mysterious, taking on a metaphorical quality as they become a powerful way to define the truth. The concept of "taking one's first step" is often overrated. After
taking a first step, no one ever stops cold. It is the succession of steps moving forward with a purpose that has true meaning in our lives. ~ Patricia Vaccarino

Sometimes it is just about taking the first step, only then can greatness find us. ~ Colleen Mariotti

The first step in awareness is to be watchful of your body. Slowly,slowly one becomes alert about each gesture,each movement. And as you become aware, a miracle starts happening: many things that you used to do before simply disappear. Your body becomes more relaxed,your body becomes more attuned, a deep peace starts prevailing even in your body, a subtle music pulsates in your body. ~ Osho

Mourning our losses is the first step away from resentment and toward gratitude. The tears of our grief can soften our hardened hearts and open us to the possibility to say thanks. ~ Henri J.M. Nouwen

The first step in providing economic equality for women is to ensure a stable economy in which every person who wants to work can work. ~ Jimmy Carter

Being nice is the first step toward being kind. It's a pretty awesome start. ~ R.J. Palacio

The first step to change,... is accepting your reality right now. Honoring your process. Compassionate self-awareness leads to change; harsh self-criticism only holds the pattern in place, creating a stubborn and defensive Basic Self. Be gentle with yourself as you would with a child. Be gentle but firm. Give yourself the space to grow. But remember that the timing is in god's hands, not yours. page~147 ~ Dan Millman

The first step on this long path is to consecrate all our works as a sacrifice to the Divine in us and in the world. ~ Sri Aurobindo

The first step to liberty is respecting the rights of others. ~ Brian McGreevy

Find one person to trust - there need only be one. With them, share every shame, every secret and listen to theirs… with love. Bare hearts and souls until there is understanding. Of a certainty, such honest exposure is the first step toward happiness.
- André Chevalier ~ Nikki Sex

To evoke another great phrase of the American revolutionary heritage - widely though inconclusively attributed to Thomas Jefferson - the price of liberty is eternal vigilance. Such a phrase is merely trite, however, unless we consider its deeper implications. For the French revolutionaries, as for so many regimes that have succeeded them across the world up to the present day, the call for vigilance against enemies, both external and internal, was the first step on the road to the loss of liberty, and lives.

Of far more significance, and the true and tragic lesson of the epic descent into The Terror, is the summons to vigilance against ourselves - that we should not assume that we are righteous, and our enemies evil; that we can see clearly, and to others are blinded by malice or folly; that we can abrogate the fragile rights of others in the name of our own certainty and all will be well regardless.

If we do not honor the message of human rights born in the revolutions of 1776 and 1786, as the French in their case most certainly failed to do, we too are on the road to The Terror. ~ David Andress

Whether it is in your work, or your relationships, or your food choices, or your interaction with any part of nature, or anything that you think, speak, or do, mindfulness has the power to align you with expressing your highest Self, for your personal and our collective highest good.
Via mindfulness we can make the choices today, that will pre-pave the desired outcomes for all of our tomorrows. Via mindfulness we put ourselves in the flow of life, where life is no longer a series of "good" and "bad" moments, but about living with ease, contentment, wellbeing, and inner peace. Ultimately mindfulness requires action, with the first step being to make mindfulness a priority in your life. ~ Evita Ochel

[T]he question of the existence of God can be neither asked nor answered. If asked, it is a question about that which by its very nature is above existence, and therefore the answer - whether negative or affirmative - implicitly denies the nature of God. It is as atheistic to affirm the existence of God as it is to deny it. God is being-itself, not a being. On this basis a first step can be taken toward the solution of the problem which usually is discussed as the immanence and the transcendence of God. As the power of being, God transcends every being and also the totality of beings - the world. Being-itself is beyond finitude and infinity; otherwise it would be conditioned by something other than itself, and the real power of being would lie beyond both it and that which conditioned it. Being-itself infinitely transcends every finite being. There is no proportion or gradation between the finite and the infinite. There is an absolute break, an infinite "jump." On the other hand, everything finite participates in being-itself and in its infinity. Otherwise it would not have the power of being. It would be swallowed by nonbeing, or it never would have emerged out of nonbeing. This double relation of all beings to being-itself gives being-itself a double characteristic. In calling it creative, we point to the fact that everything participates in the infinite power of being. In calling it abysmal, we point to the fact that everything participates in the power of being in a finit ~ Paul Tillich

For some slaves, the first step out of bondage is to learn to see their lives with new eyes. Their reality is a social world where they have their place and some assurance of a subsistence diet. Born into slavery, they cannot easily redefine their lives outside the frame of enslavement. ~ Kevin Bales

Knowing your own ignorance is the first step to enlightenment. ~ Patrick Rothfuss

If you choose to see everything as a miracle, then where you are right now is perfect. There is nowhere to run to; there is nothing else to do except be in this moment and allow what is to be. From that place of radical acceptance, major change can happen. The first step in any transformational experience is acceptance and surrender to the present moment, the way that it is. From that place we have the awareness, humility and power to change what is. ~ Mastin Kipp

And like my dad always said, the first step is always the hardest. ~ Sarah Dessen

To become aware of what is constant in the flux of nature and life is the first step in abstract thinking. The recognition of regularity in the courses of the heavenly bodies and in the succession of seasons first provides a basis for a systematic ordering of events, and this knowledge makes possible a calendar ... Simultaneously with this concept, a system of relationships comes into the idea of the world. Change is not something absolute, chaotic, and kaleidoscopic; its manifestation is a relative one, something connected with fixed points and a given order. ~ Hellmut Wilhelm

The 1st secret to success is to simply master your ability to get started, to take the first step. If you want to get physically fit, simply pack a gym bag everyday and get in the car. Once you do, where else are you going to go? ~ Hal Elrod

We were making the first step out of the age of chemistry and physics, and into the age of biology. ~ Jeremy Rifkin

Many of us want things to change in our lives. Yet, we spend so much time worrying about circumstances well beyond our control or incessantly thinking about events that have happened well in our past. One very popular activity these days is watching the news, 24/7, almost as entertainment. The reality is though, that most news stories we hear, we have little if any control over. I suggest redirecting out focus. Because, as I see it, the first step to change is spending time on those things you can actually change. ~ Charles F. Glassman

Honor your grief and the pain you feel when you lose a beloved pet. It is the first step toward healing. ~ Karen A. Anderson

And the first step in bulldozing these obstacles is to enumerate them. As Peters puts it, What you decide not to do is probably more important than what you decide to do. ~ Daniel H. Pink

Why is it that people think staying in a bad relationship is better than being single? Don't they know that being single is the first step to finding a great relationship? ~ Jennifer O'Neill

Marketers have to move upstream now. We have to stop being the last step in the process and start being the first step. ~ Seth Godin

That power he had to deplete things before getting them, that stark premonition he had of "afterward" ...Before taking the first step toward action, he had already tasted the saturation and sorrow that follow victories... ~ Clarice Lispector

If you don't care about what people think, you already passed the first step of success. ~ Paulo Coelho

Good listening is always the first step in the process that creates technique and capability ~ Howard Snell

This grace does not undo a tragedy or pardon a wrong, but it becomes the first step toward a more hopeful future. ~ Shane Claiborne

When I say maturity, I mean an inner integrity. And this inner integrity comes only when you stop making others responsible, when you stop saying that the other is creating your suffering, when you start realizing that you are the creator of your suffering. This is the first step towards maturity: I am responsible. Whatsoever is happening, it is my doing.
You feel sad. Is this your doing? You will feel very much disturbed, but if you can remain with this feeling, sooner or later you will be able to stop doing many things. This is what the theory of karma is all about. You are responsible. Don't say society is responsible, don't say that parents are responsible, don't say the economic conditions are responsible, don't throw the responsibility onto anybody. YOU are responsible. ~ Osho

Today Americans, who used to feel welcomed wherever we went, travel abroad with trepidation. We know we are not trusted or liked, that we are even hated, by millions of people around the globe. We must ask ourselves why this is so and do the work of discovering our historical behavior toward the other countries and peoples of the planet. As disturbing as this will be, it is a first step toward a peaceful existence. Not because we can make peace for our country, but because we can make peace without ourselves by changing any harmful behavior or attitudes that contribute to our present predicament. Choose any country on the map that appears to hate America. Listen to what people are shouting at their rallies and read what their banners proclaim in the street. Sit with their anger until you can see America through their eyes... Remember that you, yourself, are America. The U.S. Behave as if you are the entire country and carry yourself with humility and dignity. ~ Alice Walker

Meditation means: put the mind aside and watch. The first step - LOVE YOURSELF - will help you tremendously. By loving yourself you will have destroyed much that society has implanted within you. You will have become freer from the society and its conditioning. ~ Rajneesh

The first step toward the management of disease was replacement of demon theories and humours theories by the germ theory. That very step, the beginning of hope, in itself dashed all hopes of magical solutions. It told workers that progress would be made stepwise, at great effort, and that a persistent, unremitting care would have to be paid to a discipline of cleanliness. So it is with software engineering today. ~ Fred Brooks

The first step away from being manipulated, and towards a more autonomous outlook, is to stand back from a set of responses and think. ~ Jonathan Glover

Professor Ramachandran believes this synesthetic connection between our hearing and seeing senses was an important first step towards the creation of words in early humans. According to this theory, our ancestors would have begun to talk by using sounds that evoked the object they wanted to describe. For example, words referring to something small often involve making a synesthetic small i sound with the lips and a narrowing of the vocal tracts: Little, teeny, petite, whereas the opposite is true of words denoting something large or enormous. If the theory is right, then language emerged from the vast array of synesthetic connections in the human brain. ~ Daniel Tammet

Knowing what to do with time is the first step to take when you lose your job ~ Sunday Adelaja

The most important step of all is the first step. Start something! What if that idea you have in the back of your head is a really good one, one that might end up helping tens of thousands of people? You owe it to the world ot act. Or maybe it will help only a few people: The same advice applies. If you don't do it, you are missing out on something big, and so are the people who could have been helped. ~ Blake Mycoskie

He was dead; I needed to let his memory go, too. That was the first step for me, before discrimination.
Yet my love was the ghost of a young girl's dream. It walked alone in the abyss, stubbornly, where only illusions prospered on tears and regrets. My love had a life of its own; it was perverted but nevertheless still vital. For that reason, I wanted to return to deep space. Honestly, I would have preferred it if we had traveled forever and never stopped at another star system. To fall into endless blackness, that was my new fantasy.
The young girl with the ancient dream wept. I could hear her; I even saw her tears on the glass of the observation deck. It made me feel old. I didn't want to know her name. I couldn't forget Tem but I needed to forget her. ~ Christopher Pike

To succeed in life you must believe and take first step in working towards your goals. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

Reality is never more than a first step towards an unknown on the road to which one can never progress very far. ~ Marcel Proust

If one has failed to develop curiosity and interest in the early years, it is a good idea to acquire them now, before it is too late to improve the quality of life.
To do so is fairly easy in principle, but more difficult in practice. Yet it is sure worth trying. The first step is to develop the habit of doing whatever needs to be done with concentrated attention, with skill rather than inertia. Even the most routine tasks, like washing dishes, dressing, or mowing the lawn become more rewarding if we approach them with the care it would take to make a work of art. The next step is to transfer some psychic energy each day from tasks that we don't like doing, or from passive leisure, into something we never did before, or something we enjoy doing but don't do often enough because it seems too much trouble. There are literally millions of potentially interesting things in the world to see, to do, to learn about. But they don't become actually interesting until we devote attention to them. ~ Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

The most important step is the first step. All those old sayings are really true. Well begun is half done. Don't get it perfect, get it going. A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Nothing is more exhausting than the task that's never started, and strangely, starting is often far harder than continuing. ~ Gretchen Rubin

The first step to seeing is seeing that there are things you do not see. ~ Akwaeke Emezi

Farmers and people who make a living from the land are finding it impossible to survive. So the first step is to get out of that place. Come to the city where there are opportunities. ~ Mohsin Hamid

The first step to be a good man is this: You must deeply feel the burden of the stones someone else carrying. ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

The first step to becoming what God made you to be is to stop worrying about what others want you to be. ~ Rick Warren

Renounce to the desire of possessing worldly things: this is the first step in the path of perfection; by mean of this absolute untie is how the passions can be fought. ~ Eliphas Levi

Locking in your brand and pairing it with a coherent story is the first step to being a rainmaker. ~ Areva Martin

It was 5:45pm when I decided my future. By 9:43 I was well on my way to making it all come true. At 11:16 I took the first step to make it a reality. At 11:17 I fell and found peace. ~ Brynn Myers

Greatest discoveries start with one small step ~ Mayur Ramgir

The first step to failure is trying. ~ Me

an exercise in the art of paying attention, and paying attention, Ferguson discovered, was the first step in learning how to be alive. ~ Paul Auster

I got to see the first step, hear the first word. Most people - and certainly working moms - are not able to do that. I wanted to appreciate the fact that I had worked so hard all my life to be able to have those moments. ~ Sarah Michelle Gellar