A long long time ago I began collecting inspirational quotes and aphorisms which became my collection of quotes.
Creating anything of consequence or magnitude requires deliberate, incremental and consistent work. At the beginning, these efforts might not look like they are amounting to much. But with time, they accumulate and then compound on each other. Whether it’s a book or a business or an anthill or a stalagmite, from humble beginnings come impressive outcomes.
~ Ryan Holiday
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One of life’s great lessons lies in knowing how to refuse, and it is even more important to refuse yourself, both to business and to others. There are certain inessential activities—moths of precious time—and it is worse to busy yourself with the trivial than to do nothing. To be prudent, it isn’t enough not to meddle in other people’s business: You must also keep them from meddling in yours. Don’t belong so much to others that you stop belonging to yourself.
~ Baltasar Gracián
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Your education shouldn’t end when your schooling does. If you want to get an edge in life, you must be constantly learning, not coasting along on what you already know. Lifelong learning requires the ability to reflect on your mistakes, a lot of reading, and testing what you know.
~ Shane Parrish
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Remember: You shouldn’t be surprised that a fig tree produces figs, nor the world what it produces. A good doctor isn’t surprised when his patients have fevers, or a helmsman when the wind blows against him.
~ Marcus Aurelius
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There is no forest, there is no cave, there is no mountaintop where one can hide from oneself.
~ Wu Hsin
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Not to support this side or that in chariot-racing, this fighter or that in the games. To put up with discomfort and not make demands. To do my own work, mind my own business, and have no time for slanderers.
~ Marcus Aurelius
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Remember that to change your mind and to accept correction are free acts too. The action is yours; based on your own will, your own decision—and your own mind.
~ Marcus Aurelius
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A society must assume that it is stable, but the artist must know, and he must let us know, that there is nothing stable under heaven.
~ James Baldwin
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Stick to what’s in front of you—idea, action, utterance. This is what you deserve. You could be good today. But instead you choose tomorrow.
~ Marcus Aurelius
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Diligence is quick to carry out what intelligence has lingered over. Fools are fond of hurry: They take no heed of obstacles and act incautiously. The wise usually fail through hesitation. Fools stop at nothing, the wise at everything. Sometimes things are judged correctly but go wrong out of inefficiency and neglect. Readiness is the mother of luck. It is a great deed to leave nothing for the morrow. A lofty motto: Make haste slowly.
~ Baltasar Gracián
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