• Columnists

Pam Ray, Lobbyist

COLUMN = GOVERNMENT RELATIONS

Pam has more than three decades of in-depth experience in policy and politics, with expertise in congressional budget/appropriations and federal grant programs.

Her select policy experience includes housing and community development, housing finance, transit/transportation, taxes, and trade.

With a focus on bridging the knowledge gap between elected officials and their constituents, Pam has achieved success in her own government relations business for 16 years and for elected officials in the US Senate, US Senate Committee on Banking, Housing & Urban Affairs (1989-95), and the NYS Senate Federal Affairs Office (1986-1989).

For more information, visit www.pamrayllc.com.

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

– Arundhati Roy

‎The biggest flaw in our existing theory of capitalism lies in its misrepresentation of human nature.”

– Muhammad Yunus

‎No one is useless in this world who lightens the burden of another.”

– Charles Dickens

The goal of Life is to make your heartbeat match the beat of the universe, to match your nature with nature.”

– Joseph Cambell

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

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

– Edward Bulwer Lytton

Do you have the desire to create something new; the strength of conviction to believe your creation will be successful, and the reservoir of energy necessary to thrust it into the marketplace?”

– Steven Schussler

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

– Sarah Ban Breathnach

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

– General Omar Bradley

Success is the necessary misfortune of life, but it is only to the very unfortunate that it comes early.”

– Anthony Trollope

If it really was a no-brainer to make it on your own in business there’d be millions of no-brained, harebrained individuals quitting their day jobs.”

– Bill Rancic, "The Apprentice"

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

– John Quincy Adams

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

– Frederic Nietzsche

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

Whosoever knows how to fight well is not angry. Whosoever knows how to conquer enemies does not fight them.”

– Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching

My goal was to tell the life side of the story. We have become a nation of voyeurs that expect sensationalism, and that offends me.”

– Kathleen Jo Ryan

Never cut what you can untie.”

– Joseph Joubert

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

– Albert Schweitzer

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

– Voltaire

Passion makes perfect.”

– Eugene Biro

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

– Marcel Proust

The critical ingredient is getting off your butt and doing something.”

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

The quality of your life is directly related to the amount of uncertainty you can comfortably live with.”

– Tony Robbins

That which grows fast withers as rapidly; that which grows slowly endures.”

– J.G. Holland, novelist

If we all did the things we are capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves.”

– Thomas Edison

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

When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace.”

– Jimi Hendrix

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

– Martha Beck

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

– Winston Churchill

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

– Jim Butcher, White Night

If you do not tell the truth about yourself
, you cannot tell it about other people.”

– Virginia Woolf

Promise me you’ll always remember: You’re braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.”

– Christopher Robin to Pooh

If you would create something,
 you must be something.”

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

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

– Chinese Proverb

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

– Byron Katie

A people who mean to be their Governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.”

– James Madison

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

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

– Arthur Rubinstein

Do one thing every day that scares you.”

– Eleanor Roosevelt

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

– Goldie Hawn

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

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

– Martha Beck

Success is about finding a livelihood that brings joy, self-sufficiency, and a sense of contributing.”

– Anita Roddick

A person who learns to juggle six balls will be more skilled than the person who never tries to juggle more than three.”

– Marilyn vos Savant

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

– Guy Kawasaki

A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night and in between does what he wants to do.”

– Bob Dylan

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

– Eve Ensler

Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any one thing.”

– Abraham Lincoln

Happy are those who dream dreams and are ready to pay the price to make them come true.”

– Leon Joseph Suenens

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

– William Jennings Bryan