All great deeds and all great thoughts have a ridiculous beginning. Great works are often born on a street corner or in a restaurant's revolving door.--Albert Camus

Almost everything comes from nothing.--Henry F. Amiel

Be willing to be a beginner every single morning.--Meister Eckhart

The beginning is the most important part of any work, especially in the case of a young and tender thing; for that is the time at which the character is being formed and the desired impression more readily taken.--Plato (The Republic)

The beginnings and endings of all human undertakings are untidy.--John Galsworthy

The distance is nothing; it's only the first step that is difficult.--Marquise du Deffand

Do not despise the bottom rungs in the ascent to greatness.--Publilius Syrus

Don't be afraid if things seem difficult in the beginning. That's only the initial impression. The important thing is not to retreat; you have to master yourself.--Olga Korbut

Each day the world is born anew for him who takes it rightly.--James Russell Lowell 

The end of a thing,
is never the end,
something is always being born like
a year of a baby.--Lucille Clifton ("December" Everett Anderson's Year)

Every day is a new beginning. Treat it that way. Stay away from what might have been, and look at what can be.--Marsha Petrie Sue (The CEO of You)

Every morning is a fresh beginning. Every day is the world made new. Today is a new day. Today is my world made new. I have lived all my life up to this moment, to come to this day. This moment--this day--is as good as any moment in all eternity. I shall make of this day--each moment of this day--a heaven on earth. This is my day of opportunity.--Dan Custer

Every new beginning comes from some other beginnings end.--Semisonic

The excitement, the true excitement, was always in starting again. Nothing's worse than an accomplished task, a realized dream.--Marilyn Harris

The greatest masterpieces were once only pigments on a palette.--Henry S. Hoskins

A hard beginning maketh a good ending.--John Heywood

He has half the deed done who has made a beginning.--Horace

He who chooses the beginning of a road chooses the place it leads to. It is the means that determine the end.--Harry Emerson Fosdick

It is a tremendous act of violence to begin anything. I am not able to begin. I simply skip what should be the beginning.--Rainer Maria Rilke

It was on that road and at that hour that I first became aware of my own self, experienced an inexpressible state of grace, and felt one with the first breath of air that stirred, the first bird, and the sun so newly born that it still looked not quite round.--Colette

A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.--Lao-Tsu, (The Way of Lao-Tsu)

Know ye not, each thing we prize does come from small beginnings rise?--Mary Ann Lamb

The man who removes a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.--Chinese proverb

Nourish beginnings, let us nourish beginnings.
Not all things are blest, but the
seeds of all things are blest.
The blessing is in the seed.--Murial Rukeyser ("Elegy in Joy" The Green Wave)

The secret to a rich life is to have more beginnings than endings.--Dave Weinbaum

Seems like I've been here before, can't remember when
I get this funny feeling, we'll be together again;
No straight lines make up my life, all my roads have bends;
No clearcut beginnings; so far, no dead ends.--Tom Chapin ("Circles")

Small opportunities are often the beginning of great enterprises.--Demosthenes

So never lose an opportunity of urging a practical beginning, however small, for it is wonderful how often in such matters the mustard-seed germinates and roots itself.--Florence Nightingale

Sometimes when you think you are done, it is just the edge of beginning. Probably that's why we decide we're done. It's getting too scary. We are touching down onto something real. It is beyond the point when you think you are done that often something strong comes out.--Natalie Goldberg

Start by doing what's necessary; then do what's possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible.--St. Francis of Assisi

Take the first step in faith. You don't have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.--Martin Luther King Jr.

There must be a beginning of any great matter, but the continuing unto the end until it be thoroughly finished yields the true glory.--Sir Francis Drake

Things are always at their best in their beginning.--Blaise Pascal

This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.--Winston Churchill

The two important things I did learn were that you are as powerful and strong as you allow yourself to be, and that the most difficult part of any endeavor is taking the first step, making the first decision.--Robyn Davidson

The ultimate wisdom which deals with beginnings, remains locked in a seed. There it lies, the simplest fact of the universe and at the same time the one which calls faith rather than reason.--Hal Borland

We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year's Day.--Edith Lovejoy Pierce

Whatever you do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius and power and magic in it.--Goethe

When there is a start to be made, don't step over! Start where you are.--Edgar Cayce

The world is round and the place which may seem like the end may also be only the beginning.--Ivy Baker Priest (Parade, 1958)

You don't have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great.--Joe Sabah

You have to walk carefully in the beginning of love; the running across fields into your lover's arms can only come later when you're sure they won't laugh if you trip.--Jonathan Carroll (Outside the Dog Museum)