• 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.

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

– Carl Rogers

Part of your destiny is to live in the zone of maximum satisfaction.”

– Martha Beck

Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.”

– Anais Nin

You don’t go into a field that requires cracking people’s heads open or operating on something as delicate as the spinal cord unless you are comfortable with taking risks.”

– Dr. Ben Carson

What is the point of having free will if one cannot occasionally spit in the eye of destiny?”

– Jim Butcher, White Night

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

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

– Benjamin Disraeli

There is little success where there is little laughter.”

– Andrew Carnegie

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

– Thomas Edison

The only dream worth having is to live while you’re alive and die only when you’re dead.”

– Arundhati Roy

An entrepreneur tends to bite off a little more than he can chew hoping he’ll quickly learn how to chew it.“


– Roy Ash, co-founder of Litton Industries

Entrepreneurs are willing to roll the dice with their money or reputation on the line in support of an idea or enterprise.”

– Victor Kiam

A great secret of success is to go through life as a man who never gets used up.”

– Albert Schweitzer

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

When we speak we are afraid our words will not be heard or welcomed. But when we are silent, we are still afraid. So it is better to speak.”

– Audre Lorde

Nobody talks about entrepreneurship as survival, but that’s exactly what nurtures creative thinking.”

– Anita Roddick, founder, The Body Shop

I’ve come to confirm that one’s title, even that of president, says little about how well one’s life has been led. No matter how much you’ve done, or how successful you’ve been, there’s always more to do, to learn, and to achieve.”

– Barack Obama

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

– Robert Louis Stevenson

I have spent a good part of my life convincing people that a blank sheet of paper is the greatest opportunity in the world, and not frightening at all.”

– Marty Skler, executive vp, Walt Disney Imagineering

Don’t follow your dreams. Chase them.”

– Richard Dumb

Sometimes the dreams that come true are the dreams you never even knew you had.”

– Alice Sebold, The Lovely Bones

Try not to become a man of success but rather try to become a man of value.”

– Albert Einstein

Successful people are always looking for opportunities to help others. Unsuccessful people are always asking, ‘What’s in it for me?’”

– Brian Tracy

If you wish success in life, make perseverance your bosom friend, experience your wise counselor, caution your elder brother, and hope your guardian genius.”

– Joseph Addison

If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.”

– John Quincy Adams

It is only when the mind is free from the old that it meets everything anew, and in that there is joy.”

– J. Kristnhamurti, The First and Last Freedom

Do one thing every day that scares you.”

– Eleanor Roosevelt

Find somebody to be successful for. Raise their hopes. Think of their needs.”

– Barack Obama

They who give have all things. They who withhold have nothing.”

– Hindu Proverb

Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow know what you truly want to become.”

– Steve Jobs

Remove those ‘I want you to like me’ stickers from your forehead
and, instead, place them where they truly will do the most good—on your mirror.”

– Susan Jeffers

If you limit your choices only to what seems possible or reasonable, you disconnect yourself from what you truly want, and all that is left is compromise.”

– Robert Fritz

The follow-your-gut mentality of the entrepreneur has the potential to take you anywhere you want to go or run you right out of business.”

– Bill Rancic, "The Apprentice"

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

– General Omar Bradley

Running that first shop taught me business is not financial science; it’s about trading.”

– Anita Roddick, founder, The Body Shop

By your stumbling the world is perfected.”

– Sri Aurobindo

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

No man will make a great leader who wants to do it all himself, or to get all the credit for doing it”

– Andrew Carnegie

Destiny is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved.”

– William Jennings Bryan

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

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.”

– Leonardo da Vinci

The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be.”

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

Speaking more than one language is no longer just an asset in today’s job market; it is a requirement.”

– Tom Adams, CEO, Rosetta Stone

The best reason to start an organization is to create a product or service to make the world a better place.”

– Guy Kawasaki

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

Friendship is the only cement that will hold the world together.”

– Woodrow Wilson

Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.”

– Dalai Lama

You take your life in your own hands, and what happens?
 A terrible thing: no one to blame.”

– Erica Jong

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

– Groucho Marx

I’m not afraid of storms,
for I’m learning to sail my ship.”

– Louisa May Alcott