Inspiring and Personally Encouraging Quotations

¶ … inspiring and personally encouraging quotations I know is one by the American writer and teacher William Arthur Ward that states: "If you can imagine it, you can achieve it; if you can dream it, you can become it." In my high school and life experiences and endeavors, especially as I have been preparing to enter college, I have tried to live and achieve academically and otherwise with this and similar quotations in mind. I believe this has made a difference, and that as long as I continue to believe wholeheartedly I will work with sustained purpose toward my goals, and achieve them.

At present, my most immediate goals are to finish high school with my best possible academic record and then enter my college of choice: this one. My longer-term goals will likely include making the most of my education: academically; socially; in extracurricular activities; and perhaps by doing volunteer work like teaching reading to illiterate adults; or being a Red Cross volunteer in disaster areas like Hurricane Katrina, or helping the homeless.

Having been inspired by this quotation from William Arthur Ward and similar ones to set the goal of getting the most out of my education, what that means to is that this should include not just achieving top grades (although this is indeed a goal), but in the "education for life" sense especially, coming to know and understand peers and others from all walks of life; that is, in class; outside class; in extracurricular endeavors like the college newspaper and in sports and other activities. From reading the newspapers and keeping track of world events, I realize that people and groups throughout the world must somehow come to better understand and accept one another, or our world will always be more uneasy than it could or should be.

Obviously I am just one person; but I still feel (and know) that I can and should try make a positive difference in this respect, even if just a small one in college, by reaching out to peers and others from all cultural; religious, and other persuasions and viewpoints, in a spirit of openness; equality, and cooperation.

The first part of Ward's famous quotation reads: "If you can imagine it, you can achieve it,..," This, then, is how I personally "imagine" a road toward future world peace or at least greater world harmony; that is, from one person (like me or one of my peers) at a time meeting, accepting, understanding and coming to appreciate one other human being at a time, as equals rather than adversaries or would-be competitors for power or resources.

When Ward further states:.".. If you can dream it, you can become it," that reminds me of what I dream of becoming is an overall "humanist" in the sense of studying and coming to understand more thoroughly and critically the humanities fields like philosophy; history, and literature.

I know that for many students entering college right now or already in college, choosing to focus on humanities subjects over, say business; accounting, computers, or something more "marketable" is not a popular choice because it does not lead toward a specific career that earns high pay. But I would argue that while studying humanities does not in fact prepare one to succeed in any one career, it prepares one to succeed optimally in any career, by being able to think critically and solve problems from a rational and humanistic perspective.

My academic interests and aptitudes also include math, science, computers, foreign languages and cultural studies. In truth I have no "favorite subject"(i.e., "easiest") because I enjoy and value all. Still, if I had to "imagine" myself, undergraduate and perhaps advanced degree(s) in hand in eight to ten years, I see my future self as a scientist; mathematician; or engineer; that is, by training a researcher and/or designer, but by overall education and inclination a humanist. I feel it is this particular combination of training, education, and personal traits that allows one to make the most positive difference in the world. Albert Einstein; Marie and Pierre Curie; and Jonas Salk were such people; however, many people nowadays (and in the past) with equally famous names but who work or worked toward their goals based on purely financial or other material motivations were and are not.