Powerful questions

[P]owerful questions are the ones that cause you to become an actor as soon as you answer them or even reflect on them. You no longer have the luxury of being a spectator of whatever it is you are concerned about. Regardless of how you answer these questions, you are guilty Guilty of being an actor and participant in this world. Not a pleasant thought, but the moment we accept the idea that we have created the world, we have the power to change it.

~ Peter Block

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Silence

True silence is the rest of the mind; it is to the spirit what sleep is to the body, nourishment and refreshment.

~ William Penn

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Nouns or verbs?

We are not nouns, we are verbs. I am not a thing… an actor, a writer… I am a person who does things… I write, I act… and I never know what I am going to do next. I think you can be imprisoned if you think of yourself as a noun.

~ Stephen Fry

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Common sense

But I am still optimist enough to credit life with invincibility, I am still ready to bet that the non-human otherness at the root of man’s being will ultimately triumph over the all too human selves who frame the ideologies and engineer the collective suicides. For our survival, if we do survive, we shall be less beholden to our common sense […] that to our caterpillar- and cicadea-sense, to intelligence, in other words, as it operates on the organic level.

~ Aldous Huxley

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Challenged to change

When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.

~ Viktor Frankl

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Common mistakes

Four common mistakes that help you hide— Busy is the same as brave. A mentor is going to change your life. Waiting to get picked is the next step. There is a secret, and you will soon learn it.

~ Seth Godin

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Computers

Every day, computers are making people easier to use.

~ David Temkin

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Underemployed

The secret to doing good research is always to be a little underemployed. You waste years by not being able to waste hours.

~ Amos Tversky

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Place

When you get older, you realize it’s a lot less about your place in the world but your place in you. It’s not how everyone views you, but how you view yourself.

~ Natalie Portman

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Idleness

[H]ad I my life to arrange over again, I would do again as I have done. Only those who have lived at the full stretch seven days a week for a long time can appreciate the full beauty of a regular recurring idleness. Moreover, I am ageing. And it is a question of age. In cases of a bounding youth and exceptional energy and desire for effort I should say unhesitatingly: Keep going, day in, day out.

~ Arnold Bennett

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