People jump back and forth in pursuit of pleasures only because they see the emptiness of their lives more clearly than they do the emptiness of whichever new entertainment attracts them.
~ Blaise Pascal
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Emptiness →
Influencing others →
The possibility of influencing others causes a person with high morals to be more strict about his words and actions which could influence other people.
~ Leo Tolstoy
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The journey to virtue →
The journey of the wise to virtue is as a journey to a remote land, or the ascent of a high mountain. People who travel to a faraway place start with a single step, and those who climb a high mountain start from the bottom.
~ Confucius
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Some ironic distance →
Finally, when it comes to your own self-opinion, try to have some ironic distance from it. Make yourself aware of its existence and how it operates within you. Come to terms with the fact that you are not as free and autonomous as you like to believe. You do conform to the opinions of the groups you belong to; You do buy products because of subliminal influence; You can be manipulated. Realize as well that you are not as good as the idealized image of your self-opinion.
~ Robert Greene
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Clichés →
The problem with clichés is not that they contain false ideas, but rather that they are superficial articulations of very good ones. […] Clichés are detrimental in so far as they inspire us to believe that they adequately describe a situation while merely grazing its surface. And if this matters, it is because the way we speak is ultimately linked to the way we feel, because how we describe the world must at some level reflect how we first experience it.
~ Alain De Botton
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Not your soul →
You cannot sell your talent, your genius; as soon as you do, you are a prostitute. You can sell your work, but not your soul.
~ John Ruskin
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False ideas →
False ideas which gain currency can easily be recognized by the loud fanfare with which they are accompanied. Real truth does not need any other embellishments.
~ Leo Tolstoy
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The way to virtue →
The way to fame goes through the palaces, the way to happiness goes through the markets, the way to virtue goes through the deserts.
~ Chinese proverb
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Elusive of casual definition →
We feel something, and reach out for the nearest phrase or hum with which to communicate, but which fails to do justice to what has induced us to do so. We hear Beethoven’s Ninth and hum poum, poum, poum, we see the pyramids at Giza and go, “that’s nice.” These sounds are asked to account for an experience, but their poverty prevents either us or our interlocutors from really understanding what we have lived through. We stay on the outside of our impressions, as if staring at them through a frosted window, superficially related to them, yet estranged from whatever has eluded casual definition.
~ Alain De Botton
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Falsity and simplicity →
False science and false religion express their dogmas in highly elevated language to make simple people think that they are mysterious, important, and attractive. But this mysterious language is not a sign of wisdom. The wiser a person is, the simpler the language he uses to express his thoughts.
~ Lucy Malory
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