Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will rule your life and you will call it fate.
~ Carl Jung
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Quotes
A long long time ago I began collecting inspirational quotes and aphorisms which became my collection of quotes.
Know thyself
“Know thyself” is a piece of advice which is as old as civilization, and probably a great deal older. To follow that advice, a man must do more than indulge in introspection. If I would know myself, I must know my environment; for as a body, I am part of the environment, a natural object among other natural objects, and, as a mind, I consist to a great extent of my immediate reactions to the environment and of my secondary reactions to those primary reactions.
~ Aldous Huxley
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Too short
Very often people are proud of the purity of their conscience only because their memory is too short.
~ Zanizad Rafaezsky
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Purpose of myths
The purpose of myths is not to have us feel separate from the gods in stories but to have us understand that we are capable of the great feats that they perform.
~ Seth Godin
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Real life
Real life is found only in the present. If people tell you that you should live your life preparing for the future, do not believe them. We live in this life, and we know this life only, and therefore all our efforts should be directed toward the improvement of this life. Not your life in general but every hour of this life should be lived in the best way you know how.
~ Leo Tolstoy
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Departed
When I remember all
~ Tom Moore
the friends so link’d together,
I’ve seen around me fall,
like leaves in wintry weather;
I feel like one who treads alone
some banquet hall deserted,
Whose lights are fled, whose garlands dead,
and all but he departed.
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To see beauty
Youth is happy because it has the capacity to see beauty. Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.
~ Franz Kafka
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A cup of tea
These details may seem trivial to the foolish, but to the thoughtful they will not seem trivial. The proper, wise balancing of one’s whole life may depend upon the feasibility of a cup of tea at an unusual hour.
~ Arnold Bennett
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And then
You have to be myopic and completely focused and unbalanced in every way. Once you’ve achieved success, you’re free to do whatever you like.
~ Kevin O’Leary
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Ignorance
There are two types of ignorance, the pure, natural ignorance into which all people are born, and the ignorance of the so-called wise. You will see that many among those who call themselves scholars do not know real life, and they despise simple people and simple things.
~ Blaise Pascal
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The questions
The minute we begin to think we have all the answers, we forget the questions.
~ Madeleine L’Engle
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Change, please
I put a dollar in one of those change machines. Nothing changed.
~ George Carlin
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Greed
Accursed thirst for gold! What dost thou not compel mortals to do?
~ Virgil
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New associations
Instead of feeling complacent about what you know, you must expand your knowledge to related fields, giving your mind fuel to make new associations between different ideas. You must experiment and look at problems from all possible angles. As your thinking grows more fluid, your mind will grow increasingly dimensional, seeing more and more aspects of reality. In the end, you will turn against the very rules you have internalized, shaping and reforming them to suit your spirit.
~ Robert Greene
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Ethics
The worst mistake which was ever made in this world was the separation of political science from ethics.
~ Percy Bysshe Shelley
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Exhaustion
Learning never exhausts the mind.
~ Leonardo da Vinci
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New kind of society
[…] what we need is a few hints on the art of creating an entirely new kind of society, durable but adventurous, strong but humane, highly organized but liberty-loving, elastic and adaptable. In this matter Greece and Rome can teach us only negatively—by demonstrating, in their divergent ways, what not to do.
~ Aldous Huxley
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Creating connection
The alternative is an interaction that creates a connection instead of destroying it. Where is the eye contact? Where is the dignity that comes from recognizing another?
When we humanize the person at the other end of the counter or the phone or the Internet, we grant them something precious—personhood. When we treat the people around us with dignity, we create an entirely different platform for the words we utter and the plans we make.
~ Seth Godin
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The task of art
Our vanity, our passions, our spirit of imitation, our abstract intelligence, our habits have long been at work, and it is the task of art to undo this work of theirs, making us travel back in the direction from which we have come to the depths where what has really existed lies unknown within us.
~ Marcel Proust
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Yourself
If you see that some aspect of your society is bad, and you want to improve it, there is only one way to do so: You have to improve people. And in order to improve people, you begin with only one thing: You can become better yourself.
~ Leo Tolstoy
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