• 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.

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

– Napoleon

We are all of us born with a letter inside us, and that only if we are true to ourselves, may we be allowed to read it before we die.”

– Douglas Coupland

What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail?”

– Magical

Confidence is the most important thing you can teach someone… if you can teach them confidence, you don’t have to teach them anything else.”

– Vin Diesel

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

– Winston Churchill

Think of yourself as on the threshold of unparalleled success. A whole, clear, glorious life lies before you. Achieve! Achieve!”

– Andrew Carnegie

Entrepreneurs need to search purposefully for the sources of innovation that indicate opportunities for success.”

– Peter F. Drucker

A truly forgiving person is someone who experiences all the anger merited by injustice and still acts with fairness and compassion.”

– Martha Beck

Persist and persevere, and you will find most things that are attainable, possible.”

– Lord Chesterfield

Our deepest wishes are whispers of our authentic selves. We must learn to respect them. We must learn to listen.”

– Sarah Ban Breathnach

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

I may not be able to change what takes place, but I can always choose to change my thinking.”

– Michelle Sedas

Do you believe it is important to give back some portion of your wealth to support charitable causes?”

– Steven Schussler

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

– African Proverb

Of course there is no formula for success except perhaps an unconditional acceptance of life and what it brings.”

– Arthur Rubinstein

The good ideas are all hammered out in agony by individuals, not spewed out by groups.”

– Charles Brower, Advertising Hall of Fame

The man who acquires the ability to take full possession of his own mind may take possession of anything else to which he is justly entitled.”

– Andrew Carnegie

Almost anyone can start a community, but it takes real talent and commitment to get people to show up and keep coming back.”

– Andy Sernovitz

If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. 
Now put foundations under them.”

– Henry David Thoreau

He who knows he has enough is rich.”

– Tao Te Ching

History is a relentless master. It has no present, only the past rushing into the future. To try to hold fast is to be swept aside.”

– John F. Kennedy

Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”

– Nelson Mandela

Hope sees the invisible, feels the intangible, and achieves the impossible.”

– Helen Keller

You must learn to be still in the midst of activity 
and to be vibrantly alive in repose.”

– Indira Ghandi

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

Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.”

– Dalai Lama

To find what you seek in the road of life, leave no stone unturned.”

– Edward Bulwer Lytton

The only way to compel men to speak good of us is to do it.”

– Voltaire

The great use of life is to spend it on something that will outlast it.”

– William James

We are not meant to resolve all contradictions, but to live with them and rise above them.”

– William Blake

If your success is not on your own terms, if it looks good to the world but does not feel good in your heart, it is not success at all.”

– Anna Quindlen

I always maintained that the greatest obstacle in life isn’t danger, it’s boredom. The battle against it is responsible for most of the events in the world — good or ill.”

– Dr. Evelyn Vogel, Dexter

It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.”

– Charles Darwin

Never never never never give up.”

– Winston Churchill

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

– Thomas Carlyle

Don’t sit down and wait for the opportunities to come. Get up and make them!”

– Madam C.J. Walker

We are all faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as impossible situations.”

– Charles R. Swindoll

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

– Chinese Proverb

The music is all around us. All you have to do is listen.”

– August Rush

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

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

Who cares if my glass is half empty or half full; I still have something to drink.”

– Optimism rules

Happiness is an attitude. We either make ourselves miserable, or happy and strong. The amount of work is the same.”

– Francesca Reigle

We need to learn to set our course by the stars, not by the lights of every passing ship.”

– General Omar Bradley

You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.”

– Winston Churchill

Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read.”

– Groucho Marx

Do not follow where the path may lead. Go, instead, where there is no path and leave a trail.”

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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

Why am I whispering when I have something to say?”

– Eve Ensler

I will pay more for the ability to deal with people than any other ability under the sun.”

– John D. Rockefeller

You must have chaos within you, to create a dancing star.”

– Frederic Nietzsche