ehm... i gots a bunch.
the one that summarizes them all prolly is from a sticker on
http://www.unamerican.com : BE NOT HALF-ASSED
but here's some others on that tip... true they're more like "quotes to live by" than strictly personal mottoes, but...
There is an endless supply of white men, but there has always been a limited number of human beings. (from
Little Big Man)
If our ways scare
you perhaps you
should ask yourself why--
is it OUR passion
that frightens you
our your own?
(in
Mage: the Ascension)
Freedom is not something that anybody can be given; freedom is something people take and people are as free as they want to be. (James Baldwin)
I don't want to pass through life like a smooth plane ride. All you do is get to breathe and copulate and finally die. I don't want to go with the smooth skin and the calm brow. I hope I end up a blithering idiot cursing the sun - hallucinating, screaming, giving obscene and inane lectures on street corners and public parks. People will walk by and say, "Look at that drooling idiot. What a basket case." I will turn and say to them, "It is you who are the basket case. For every moment you hated your job, cursed your wife and sold yourself to a dream that you didn't even conceive. For the times your soul screamed yes and you said no. For all of that. For your self-torture, I see the glowing eyes of the sun! The air talks to me! I am at all times!" And maybe, the passers-by will drop a coin into my cup. (Henry Rollins)
If you foolishly ignore beauty, you'll soon find yourself without it. Your life will be impoverished. But if you wisely invest in beauty, it will remain with you all the days of your life. (Frank Lloyd Wright)
But you do, you have magic. Maybe you can't find it, but it's there! You have all the power you need, if you dare to look for it. (in
The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle)
Let us so live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry. (Mark Twain)
Talk not of wasted affection; affection never was wasted. (Henry Wadsworth Longfellow)
He says, "There's nothing left of me.
I'm like a ruby held up to the sunrise.
Is it still a stone, or a world
made of redness? It has no resistance
to sunlight."
This is how Hallaj said, I am God,
and told the truth!
(Rumi)
i get the feeling i misinterpreted this topic, sorry for turning it into a quotefest there...