Laugh at yourself, but don't ever aim your doubt at yourself. Be bold. When you embark for strange places, don't leave any of yourself safely on shore. Have the nerve to go into unexplored territory.
Alan AldaRead
You can't get there by bus, only by hard work and risk and by not quite knowing what you're doing. What you'll discover will be wonderful. What you'll discover will be yourself.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Success comes from effort and taking risks, often without a clear direction.
This quote by Alan Alda emphasizes the importance of hard work and the willingness to take risks in order to achieve personal growth and discover one's true self. It suggests that the journey may not have a clear path, but the experiences gained along the way can lead to wonderful revelations about who we are.
Themes
Hard WorkRiskSelf-DiscoveryJourneyGrowth
In practice
Example use cases
Use this quote to inspire students at a graduation ceremony about the importance of hard work in their future.
More from Alan Alda
All quotes →Begin challenging your own assumptions. Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in awhile, or the light won't come in.
Alan AldaRead
Laugh at yourself, but don't ever aim your doubt at yourself.
Alan AldaRead
Here's my Golden Rule for a tarnished age: Be fair with others, but keep after them until they're fair with you.
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If you know what you're looking for, that's all you'll get - what's previously known. But when you're open to what's possible, you get something new - that's creativity.
Alan AldaRead
I found I wasn't asking good enough questions because I assumed I knew something. I would box them into a corner with a badly formed question, and they didn't know how to get out of it. Now, I let them take me through it step by step, and I listen.
Alan AldaRead
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