• Columnists

Kathleen McCarthy, senior editor, Be Inkandescent magazine

A freelance editor and writer in the mental health field for the last 20 years, Kathleen McCarthy is the senior editor for Be Inkandescent Magazine, and also writes the magazine’s Parenting column.

In 2012, Kathleen became the manager of the new speakers bureau, InkandescentSpeakers.com, an international organization of small business experts that travel around the globe to provide best practices to entrepreneurs.

She also handles the editing, design, and layout for the monthly online newsletter of the American Mental Health Counselors Association.

As a freelance writer and editor, her clients have included government agencies, corporations, and universities. Before becoming a freelancer, she worked for several nonprofit associations, including the American Psychological Association, the National Association of College and University Business Officers, and the American Association for Engineering Education.

A deadline fanatic, Kathleen is zealous about the virtues of the serial comma and admires writers who can translate dense topics into artful prose. In her spare time, she likes to diagram sentences.

Inspiration and genius — one and the same.”

– Victor Hugo

Everyone is a mirror image of yourself—your own thinking coming back at you.”

– Byron Katie

Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds you plant.”

– Robert Louis Stevenson

The true entrepreneur is a doer, not a dreamer.”

– Nolan Bushnell, founder, Chuck E. Cheese's

Patience and perseverance have a magical effect before which obstacles vanish.”

– John Quincy Adams

Never cut what you can untie.”

– Joseph Joubert

Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.”

– Seneca

When I was younger I thought success was being a star, driving nice cars, having groupies. But today I think the most important thing is to live your life with integrity.

– Ellen DeGeneres

Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly. Hold fast to dreams, for when dreams go, life is a barren field frozen with snow.”

– Langston Hughes

We make a living by what we get; we make a life by what we give.”

– Winston Churchill

It is only with the heart that one can see rightly,
 what is essential is invisible to the eye.”

– Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

It is to no purpose to turn away from the real nature of the affair because the honor of its elements excites repugnance.

– Carl von Clausewitz, On War

Let us seize the day and the opportunity and strive for that greatness of spirit that measures life not by its disappointments but by its possibilities.”

– W.E.B. Du Bois

It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves.”

– William Shakespeare

Many people prefer to play it safe when it comes to business matters. Are you willing to take risks in the pursuit of entrepreneurial success?”

– Steven Schussler

There are children playing in the street who could solve some of my top problems in physics, because they have modes of sensory perception that I lost long ago.”

– J. Robert Oppenheimer

The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.”

– Carl Rogers

Remember that it’s okay to ask for help when you’re stumped, because sometimes you really can’t be expected to handle everything alone.”

– Martha Beck

It is possible to fail in many ways…while to succeed is possible only in one way.”

– Aristotle

If you look at what you have in life, you’ll always have more.
 If you look at what you don’t have in life, you’ll never have enough.”

– Oprah Winfrey

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.”

– Leonardo da Vinci

Don’t follow your dreams. Chase them.”

– Richard Dumb

He who knows he has enough is rich.”

– Tao Te Ching

Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

– Mary Oliver

Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.”

– T.S. Eliot

If people like you they’ll listen to you; if they trust you, they’ll do business with you.”

– Zig Ziglar

Don’t think. Thinking is the enemy of creativity.”

– Ray Bradbury

When I dare to be powerful—to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.”

– Audre Lorde

The world I believed in, back in my most innocent, uninformed, childish mind—is real.”

– Martha Beck

No matter how difficult and painful it may be, nothing sounds as good to the soul as the truth.”

– Martha Beck, from "Leaving the Saints"

The fixity of a habit is generally in direct proportion to its absurdity.”

– Marcel Proust

My task is really not to change myself but to become familiar with who I am.”

– Maureen Cook

To follow, without halt, one aim: There’s the secret of success.”

– Anna Pavlova

I find out what the world needs, then I proceed to invent.”

– Thomas Edison

Ambition is the germ from which all growth of nobleness proceeds.”

– Thomas Dunn

If you were independently wealthy and never had to work a day in your life, would you still choose to spend your time attempting to become a successful entrepreneur?”

– Steven Schussler

Nurture your mind with great thoughts; to believe in the heroic makes heroes.”

– Benjamin Disraeli

There are risks and costs to a program of action. But they are far less than the long-range risks and costs of comfortable inaction.”

– JFK

The young man knows the rules, but the old man knows the exceptions.”

– Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., U.S. Supreme Court justice

You often meet your fate on the road you take to avoid it.”

– Goldie Hawn

He who wants to tear down a house must be prepared to rebuild it.”

– African Proverb

Normal day, let me be aware of the treasure you are. 
Let me not pass you by in quest of some rare and perfect tomorrow.”

– Mary Jean Irion

Permanence, perseverance and persistence in spite of all obstacles distinguishes the strong soul from the weak.”

– Thomas Carlyle

To be what we are, and to become what we are capable of becoming, is the only end of life.”

– Robert Louis Stevenson

Just don’t give up trying to do what you really want to do.
 Where there is love and inspiration, I don’t think you can go wrong.”

– Ella Fitzgerald

You may ask me for anything you like except time.”

– Napoleon

A man who strikes first admits that his ideas have given out.”

– Chinese Proverb

Pretend that every single person you meet has a sign around his or her neck that says, ‘Make Me Feel Important.’ Not only will you succeed in sales, you will succeed in life.”

– Mary Kay Ash

Treat the attainment of happiness in the same way an entrepreneur would approach building a business — with a vision, plan, goals, and a systematic approach.”

– Ted Leonsis

A man without a smiling face
 should not open a shop.”

– Chinese Proverb