My father was a certain kind of man - I saw how he treated my mother and his family and how he treated strangers. And I vowed I would never make a film that would not reflect properly on my father's name.
Sidney PoitierRead
You don't have to become something you're not to be better than you were.
Interpretation
This quote encourages self-improvement without losing one's authentic self.
Sidney Poitier's quote emphasizes the importance of personal growth and self-acceptance. It suggests that to improve one's life and circumstances, one does not need to adopt a false persona or imitate others. Instead, the focus should be on enhancing one's true self and building upon existing strengths.
In practice
In a motivational speech at a personal development seminar.
My father was a certain kind of man - I saw how he treated my mother and his family and how he treated strangers. And I vowed I would never make a film that would not reflect properly on my father's name.
My father was the quintessential husband and dad.
I wanted to explore the values that are at work, underpinning my life.
We suffer pain, we hang tight to hope, we nurture expectations, we are plagued occasionally by fears, we are haunted by defeats and unrealized hopes . . . The hoplessness of which I speak is not limited.
We're all imperfect, and life is simply a perpetual, unending struggle against those imperfections.
I was the only Black person on the set. It was unusual for me to be in a circumstance in which every move I made was tantamount to representation of 18 million people.
With your desire defined, quietly go within and shut the door behind you. Lose yourself in your desire; feel yourself to be one with it; remain in this fixation until you have absorbed the life and name by claiming and feeling yourself to be and to have that which you desired. When you emerge from the hour of prayer you must do so conscious of being and possessing that which you heretofore desired.
No matter how much time you've wasted in the past, you still have an entire today.
Don't let the winds blow your dreams away... or steal your faith in God.
Any idea, plan, or purpose may be placed in the mind through repetition of thought.
The one excellent thing that can be learned from a lion is that whatever a man intends doing should be done by him with a whole-hearted and strenuous effort.
If youβre not afraid, if you take everything you are, everything worthwhile in you and direct it at one goal, one ultimate mark, youβve got to get there.
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