First Steps Quotes

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

I wasn't someone who needed an infant. It wasn't important to me to make bottles or see first steps or hear first words. Kindergarten, grade school....I didn't need to do any of that. I wanted to be a father, but being a father is about a lifetime of parenting, not just little-kid stuff. ~ Jessica Park

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

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

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

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

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

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 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

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

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

There is no greater heaven than the heart of a loving mother
She takes care of you when you are still in her womb.
She nurtures you after you are born.
She hurts when you fall,
She celebrates when you make your first steps.
She is the only person who genuinely cares about you.
She loves you as she loves herself.
Her heart is your true paradise.
I love you mama. ~ Bangambiki Habyarimana

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

The difference between ordinary and extra-ordinary is so often just simply that little word - extra. And for me, I had always grown up with the belief that if someone succeeds it is because they are brilliant or talented or just better than me ... and the more of these words I heard the smaller I always felt! But the truth is often very different ... and for me to learn that ordinary me can achieve something extra-ordinary by giving that little bit extra, when everyone else gives up, meant the world to me and I really clung to it ... ~ Bear Grylls

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

[Seeds Are Small.] Becoming a force of nature doesn't mean that all of our aspirations must be "grand." First steps are often small, and initial visions that focus energy effectively often address immediate problems. What matters is engagement in the service of a larger purpose rather than lofty aspirations that paralyze action. Indeed, it's a dangerous trap to believe that we can pursue onlhy "great visions." ~ Peter Senge

Have you ever wondered what it feels like to have a love for the lost? This is a term we use as part of our Christian jargon. Many believers search their hearts in condemnation, looking for the arrival of some feeling of benevolence that will propel them into bold evangelism. It will never happen. It is impossible to love "the lost". You can't feel deeply for an abstraction or a concept. You would find it impossible to love deeply an unfamiliar individual portrayed in a photograph, let alone a nation or a race or something as vague as "all lost people".
Don't wait for a feeling or love in order to share Christ with a stranger. You already love your heavenly Father, and you know that this stranger is created by Him, but separated from Him, so take those first steps in evangelism because you love God. It is not primarily out of compassion for humanity that we share our faith or pray for the lost; it is first of all, love for God. ~ John Piper

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

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

Coop kissed me deeply, drawing my breath from me in a long, sweet ribbon. "Perhaps I haven't mentioned it, but I'm an expert when it comes to first steps."
Are you," I said. "Then tell me how."
You close your eyes," Coop answered, "and jump. ~ Jodi Picoult

I know every line of his face. The one that was carved the first year of our marriage, by laughing so often. The one that was born of worries the year he left the contracting companies to go into business for himself. The one developed from focusing hard on Nathaniel as he took his first steps, said his first words. ~ Jodi Picoult

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

I don't know about the first steps in a geography of loss, and I know that it's unmapped. I know that we all have to go by ourselves. ~ Wayne Earl

Chaos is the first step in the creative process. ~ Jill Bolte Taylor

You know that euphemism, she's expecting? It's apt. The birth of a baby, so long as it's healthy, is something to look forward to. It's a good thing, a big, good, huge event. And from thereon in, every good things, too," I added hurriedly, "but also, you know, first steps, first dates, first places in sack races. Kids, they graduate, they marry, they have kids themselves- in a way, you get to do everything twice. Even if our kid had problems," I supposed idiotically, "at least they wouldn't be our same old problems ... " (22) ~ Lionel Shriver

So the first step out of childhood is made all at once, without looking before or behind, without caution, and nothing held in reserve. ~ Ursula K. Le Guin

And the first step, as you know, is always what matters most, particularly when we are dealing with those who are young and tender. That is the time when they are taking shape and when any impression we choose to make leaves a permanent mark. ~ Plato

The first step in learning to love others is the attempt to understand them. ~ Adrienne Von Speyr

Have you ever stopped to think that Christianity is the only religion in which the first step is to say, "I'm wrong?" ~ Dwight Longenecker

Unlike puppets we have the possibility of stopping in our movements, looking up and perceiving the machinery by which we have been moved. In this act lies the first steps towards freedom. ~ Peter L. Berger

The first step of letting go: To remove what obstructs your experience of wholeness and peace, you must first look at the obstruction. ~ Hugh Prather

Could it be ... that the hero is one who is willing to set out, take the first step, shoulder something? Perhaps the hero is one who puts his foot upon a path not knowing what he may expect from life but in some way feeling in his bones that life expects something of him. ~ P.L. Travers

Fasting is an indispensable condition of a good life; but in fasting, as in abstinence in general, the question arises with what shall we begin: how to fast, - how often to eat, what to eat, what to avoid eating? And as we can do no work seriously without regarding the necessary order of sequence, so also we cannot fast without knowing where to begin, - with what to commence abstinence in food.
Fasting! And even an analysis of how to fast, and where to begin! The notion seems ridiculous to the majority of men.
I remember how an evangelical preacher who was attacking monastic asceticism and priding himself on his originality, once said to me, "My Christianity is not concerned with fasting and privations, but with beefsteaks." Christianity, or virtue in general - with beefsteaks!
During the long period of darkness and of the absence of all guidance, Pagan or Christian, so many wild, immoral ideas became infused into our life, especially into that lower region concerning the first steps toward a good life, - our relation to food, to which no one paid any attention, - that it is difficult for us even to understand the audacity and senselessness of upholding Christianity or virtue with beefsteaks.
We are not horrified by this association solely because a strange thing has befallen us. We look and see not: listen and hear not. There is no bad odor, no sound, no monstrosity, to which man cannot become accustomed, so that he ceases to remark that which would strik ~ Leo Tolstoy

My fellow Americans, let us take that first step. Let us ... step back from the shadow of war and seek out the way of peace. And if that journey is a thousand miles, or even more, let history record that we, in this land, at this time, took the first step. ~ John F. Kennedy

Never think that success is down to your own performance alone. If you start listening only to yourself you take the first step back towards the bottom. The flowers of victory belong in many vases. ~ Michael Schumacher

The Soviet Union has long been proposing to outlaw chemical weapons, to remove them from the arsenals of states. We are prepared for resolution of this problem either on a global basis or piece by piece. As one of the first steps the USSR and the other socialist countries proposed in January 1984 that agreement be reached on ridding Europe of all types of chemical weapons. ~ Konstantin Chernenko

Sinner, I would be loth to have thy soul destroyed by wilful self-delusion ... So consequently, there is a despair which is a grievous sin; and there is a despair which is absolutely necessary to thy salvation. I would not have thee despair of the sufficiency of the blood of Christ to save thee, if thou believe, and heartily obey him; nor of the willingness of God to pardon and save thee, if thou be such a one; nor yet absolutely of thy own salvation; because, while there is life and time, there is some hope of thy conversion, and so of thy salvation ... Never stick at the sadness of the conclusion, man, but acknowledge plainly, If I die before I get out of this estate, I am lost forever. It is as good deal truly with thyself as not; God will not flatter thee, he will deal plainly whether thou do or not. The very truth is, this kind of despair is one of the first steps to heaven(233). ~ Richard Baxter

What we found in our conversations with these superachievers was that success di not come to them in the thunderclap of their Eureka! moments. Talent was just the beginning. Their sustained success depended on many factors -some in their control, and some not- but the first steps of these superachievers were to know themselves and to assess what they had to work with. Then, their progress toward their goals was furthered by their fierce dedication to the day-to-day struggle for achievement. ~ Camille Sweeney

The first step towards amendment is the recognition of error. ~ Seneca The Younger

Do not forget that even as "to work is to worship" so to be cheery is to worship also, and to be happy is the first step to being pious. ~ Robert Louis Stevenson

I do believe that when your child does poorly on a test, your first step should not necessarily be to attack the teacher or the school's curriculum. It should be to look at the idea that, maybe, the child didn't work hard enough. ~ Amy Chua

The first step - especially for young people with energy and drive and talent, but not money - the first step to controlling your world is to control your culture. To model and demonstrate the kind of world you demand to live in. To write the books. Make the music. Shoot the films. Paint the art. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

Everyone has an idea, but it's taking those first steps toward turning that idea into a reality that are always the toughest. ~ Daymond John

Feminism is not only for women It's something everyone can participate in, and evolve together, as the first step in the right direction. I see feminism as a tool to achieve that balance and peace. ~ Ani DiFranco

The first step is that the Cambodian government has expressed sincerity to apologize for what happened. ~ Thaksin Shinawatra

I knew someone had to take the first step and I made up my mind not to move. ~ Rosa Parks

Achievable goals are the first step to self improvement. ~ J.K. Rowling

Not only Freud but artists and writers were also interested in the unconscious. It was medicine that made the first steps toward modernity. ~ Eric Kandel

As I read the Bible, it seems clear that God satisfies his "eternal appetite" by loving individual human beings. I imagine He views each halting step forward in my spiritual "walk" with the eagerness of a parent watching a child take the very first step. ~ Philip Yancey

The first step is always to succeed in becoming surprised - to notice that there is something funny going on. ~ David Gelernter

If anyone would like to acquire humility, I can, I think, tell him the first step. The first step is to realize that one is proud. And a biggish step, too. At least, nothing whatever can be done before it. If you think you are not conceited, you are very conceited indeed. ~ C.S. Lewis

Education will not come of itself; it will never come unless you seek it; it will not come unless you take the first steps which lead to it; but, taking these steps, every man can acquire it. ~ Henry Ward Beecher

It's all well and good to look back after the fact and see what we should have done, but we rarely know what path is best when we take that first step. ~ Christine Feehan

The first step is what I like to be sure of ... to the second step it often binds you. ~ Amelia Barr

It was a sense of privilege and mute wonder, as though he'd witnessed one of those small, everyday miracles of spring. Like a licked-clean foal taking its first steps on wobbly legs. Or a new butterfly pushing scrunched, damp wings from a chrysalis. ~ Tessa Dare

The rhetoric is the first step, it coarsens attitudes ~ Amy Waldman

Slavery is the first step towards civilization. In order to develop it is necessary that things should be much better for some and much worse for others, then those who are better off can develop at the expense of others. ~ Alexander Herzen

A correct theory is the first step towards improvement, by showing what we need and what we might accomplish. ~ William Stanley Jevons

The first step toward creating an improved future is developing the ability to envision it. VISION will ignite the fire of passion that fuels our commitment to do WHATEVER IT TAKES to achieve excellence. Only VISION allows us to transform dreams of greatness into the reality of achievement through human action. VISION has no boundaries and knows no limits. Our VISION is what we become in life. ~ Tony Dungy

A sturdy, hardened sinner shall advance to the utmost pitch of impiety, with less reluctance than he took the first step while his conscience was yet vigilant and tender. ~ Francis Atterbury

On this path, it is only the first step that counts. ~ John Vianney

Peace is only possible when one of the warring sides takes the first step, the hazardous initiative, the risk of opening up dialogue, and decides to make the gesture that will lead not only to an armistice but to peace. ~ Jacques Derrida

The first step to wisdom is to be sure one says and does what one believes. ~ Pam Brown

The first step in the revolution by the working class, is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class, to win the battle for democracy. ~ Karl Marx

Louisa Carrington, come here." Her head came up at the imperious note in his voice. "Allow me to rephrase that: Dearest Wife, would you let me hold you?" He held out his arms, willing her to accept his embrace. Her first steps were tentative, but he held her gaze and waited until she was bundled against his chest. "I want to shout at you, Joseph. I am very like my father in this." "Go ahead and shout. I think better when I'm holding you. Perhaps you think better when you shout." She ~ Grace Burrowes

Choosing to be honest is the first step in the process of love. There is no practitioner of love who deceives. Once the choice has been made to be honest, then the next step on love's path is communication. ~ Bell Hooks

I look at my career and I feel like I haven't even started yet. I feel like I haven't even begun to shift the planet. But I'm so excited because Rock of Ages is one of the first steps of that new phase in my life. ~ Mia Michaels

The first step in liquidating a people,' said Hubl, 'is to erase its memory. Destroy its books, its culture, its history. Then have somebody write new books, manufacture a new culture, invent a new history. Before long the nation will begin to forget what it is and what it was. The world around it will forget even faster. ~ Milan Kundera

[When it comes to writing]The first steps that are the hardest. Mine were accidental in a away. I wrote what I wanted on a blog & the rest is history. ~ A.J. Walters

My name is Ferrum. I was the first, born of the forges, when mankind first began to experiment with iron. I rose from their imagination, from their ambition to conquer the world with a metal that could slice through bronze like paper. I was there when the world started to shift, when humans took their first steps out of the Dark Ages into civilization. For many years, I thought I was alone. But mankind is never satisfied. Others came, risen from these dreams of a new world ... Then, with the invention of computers, the gremlins came, and the bugs. Given life by the fear of monsters lurking in machines, these were more chaotic than the other fey, violent and destructive. They spread to every part of the world. As technology became a driving force in every country, powerful new fey rose into existence. Virus. Glitch. And Machina, the most powerful of all. ~ Julie Kagawa

The first step in freeing yourself from social restrictions is the realization that there is no such thing as a safe code of conduct - one that would earn everyone's approval. Your actions can always be condemned by someone - for being too bold or too apathetic, for being too conformist or too nonconformist, for being too liberal or too conservative. So it's necessary to decide whose approval is important to you. ~ Harry Browne

Truth is cold and hard but it is also the first step on the path to hope and salvation. ~ Lynn Tilton

The personal revolution is far more difficult, and is the first step in any revolution. ~ Michael Franti

You will have to relax from the circumference. The first step in relaxing is the body. Remember as many times as possible to look in the body, whether you are carrying some tension in the body somewhere - at the neck, in the head, in the legs. Relax it consciously. Just go to that part of the body, and persuade that part, say to it lovingly "Relax!" ~ Rajneesh

The first step toward discarding a scarcity mentality involves giving thanks for everything that you have. ~ Wayne Dyer

You want to do something for the Lord ... do it. Whatever you feel needs to be done, even though youre shaking in your boots, youre scared to death
take the first step forward. The grace comes with that one step and you get the grace as you step. Being afraid is not a problem; its doing nothing when you feel afraid. ~ Mother Angelica

Admitting one's ignorance is the first step in acquiring knowledge ... ~ Socrates

Never leave the site of a goal without first taking some form of positive action towards its attainment. Right now, take a moment to define the first steps you must take to achieve some goal. What can you do today to move forward? ~ Tony Robbins

The first steps toward stewardship are awareness, appreciation, and the
selfish desire to have the things around for our kids to see. Presumably the
unselfish motives will follow as we wise up. ~ Barbara Kingsolver

The launch of phase 1 Ebola vaccine studies is a first step in developing a vaccine that could be licensed and used in the field to protect not only the front line health care workers but also those living in areas where Ebola virus exists. ~ Anthony Fauci

When our spirit tells us it is time to weep, we should weep. It is part of the ritual, if you will, of putting sadness in perspective and gaining control of the situation ... Grief has a purpose. Grieving does not mean you are weak It is the first step toward regaining balance and strength. Grieving is part of the tempering process. ~ Joseph M. Marshall III

A willing heart is the first step in finding God's will in our lives. We cannot expect God to force us or to plead with us about the calling in our lives. ~ David Jeremiah

Don't get discouraged if you stumble at times. The first step to walking in righteousness is simply to try. ~ Dieter F. Uchtdorf

Ministry sounds intimidating until you develop a realistic view of what ministry is really about. Maybe you're not gifted to preach sermons, start a rehabilitation clinic, or lead a marriage retreat. But do you know people who struggle with sin? Do you know people who are carrying burdens? If so, then your first steps toward ministry are easy: help them. ~ Francis Chan

Replacing General McChrystal with David Petraeus was a good first step, but more will be needed. ~ Jim Talent

She could smell the boy spice beneath the thrift-store aroma of his jacket, and the rubbing and the smell began to work to soften her
like butter before you add sugar, in the first steps of making something sweet. It was her first experience of how bodies could meld together, how breath could slip naturally into rhythm. It was hypnotic. Heady. And she wanted more. ~ Laini Taylor

I can't see the end of the road, but here is the great part: Courage is not about knowing the path. It is about taking the first step. ~ Katie J. Davis

When you finally find the courage to admit you have a problem, that's when you have some power over it. That's the first step. Otherwise you're just withering away, you're like a burning piece of paper getting smaller and smaller. ~ Ryan Montgomery

You can't change the past but you can change everything else. Take your first step toward making a significant change in your life, today. ~ Hal Elrod

The first step toward liberation of any group is to use the power in hand ... And the power in hand is the vote. ~ Helen Gahagan Douglas

Women create an idealized, hopeful vision for the future to inspire other women. Fiction and fantasy are the crucial first steps to changing the world. ~ Maya Rodale

There must be a solemn and terrible aloneness that comes over the child as he takes those first independent steps. All this is lost to memory and we can only reconstruct it through analogies in later life ... To the child who takes his first steps and finds himself walking alone, this moment must bring the first sharp sense of the uniqueness and separateness of his body and his person, the discovery of the solitary self. ~ Selma Fraiberg

Beginning with a trip out to Ellis Island, I saw for myself where thousands of European immigrants took their first steps onto American soil, bringing with them nothing but their ambition: people such as Erich von Stroheim and Adolph Zukor. ~ Paul Merton

Jo's breath gave out here, and wrapping her head in the paper, she bedewed her little story with a few natural tears, for to be independent and earn the praise of those she loved were the dearest wishes of her heart, and this seemed to be the first step toward that happy end. ~ Louisa May Alcott

If we are to maximize the potential of young girls everywhere, we have to think, in this instance, literally outside the box. And the first step of doing that is to see the box for what it really is: A perfect, pretty PROBLEM. ~ David Trumble

Believing in yourself is the first step to accomplishing any goal. If you think you're going to fail, you probably will. ~ Will Smith

The first step of gratitude is to see the gift ... if you are in the middle of difficulties and problems, how can you feel gratitude? You've got to fight to find the gift even in the difficulty ... when you shift your perspective from the perspective of the mind because life will never make sense to your mind ... mind is very logical and life is not. In order for life to make sense you've got to be out of your mind and you've got to be into your soul. When you begin to see life from the perspective of your soul then even in the midst of the worst of it you can see the gift. ~ Neale Donald Walsch

Despair of ever being saved, "except thou be born again," or of seeing God "without holiness," or of having part in Christ except thou "love him above father, mother, or thy own life." This kind of despair is one of the first steps to heaven. ~ Richard Baxter