Some things have to be believed to be seen.
~ Ralph Hodgson
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Inspirational Quotes book (reviewed)
Accumulated
The dead outnumber the living 14 to 1, and we ignore the accumulated experience of such a huge majority of mankind at our peril.
~ Niall Ferguson
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Unnecessary
Humans don’t mind hardship, in fact they thrive on it; what they mind is not feeling necessary. Modern society has perfected the art of making people not feel necessary.
~ Sebastian Junger
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Reading
The man who doesn’t read good books has no advantage over the man who can’t read them.
~ Mark Twain
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Growth
Everyone encourages you to grow up to the point where you can discount your own bad moods. Few encourage you to continue to the point where you can discount society’s bad moods.
~ Paul Graham
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History
History as usually written is quite different from history as usually lived. The historian records the exceptional because it is interesting.
~ Will Durant
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Jealousy
I learned early that people will admire your work more if they are not jealous of you.
~ Benjamin Franklin
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Comforts
Comforts, once gained, become necessities. And if enough of those comforts become necessities, you eventually peel yourself away from any kind of common feeling with the rest of humanity.
~ Sebastian Junger
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Point of view
A point of view can be a dangerous luxury when substituted for insight and understanding.
~ Marshall McLuhan
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Childhood’s end
When I was a child I wanted to be an architect, and now that I am an architect I would sometimes like to be a child again.
~ Federico Babina
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Flexibility
The boldness of asking deep questions may require unforeseen flexibility if we are to accept the answers.
~ Brian Greene
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Distraction
The defenders of our freedom have failed to take into account our infinite appetite for distraction.
~ Aldous Huxley
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Converse
Whilst we converse with what is above us, we do not grow old, but grow young.
~ R. W. Emerson
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Self
I should not talk so much about myself if there was anybody else whom I knew so well.
~ H. D. Thoreau
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Separation
[O]ne of the most fundamental struggles for any leader—in business, in organizations, or in public life—stems directly from the separation that most of us feel between who we are as people and what we do as practical professionals.
~ William Isaacs
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Precious
What is this little, agile, precious fire, this fluttering motion which we call the mind?
~ Prior
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Strangeness
This planet is genuinely strange. If we were all flown to the moon or to Mars and walked around on them, they wouldn’t seem that strange to us because there would be no yardsticks or anything to measure their strangeness by—they’re just vast museums of geology. Whereas the Earth is a deranged zoo, and somebody left the doors of the cages open. We have real strangeness because we can measure the degree to which things are or are not what they ought to be.
~ J. G. Ballard
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Giving
The impulse to keep to yourself what you have learned is not only shameful, it is destructive. Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you. You open your safe and find ashes.
~ Annie Dillard
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Confidence
The greater the artist, the greater the doubt. Perfect confidence is granted to the less talented as a consolation prize.
~ Robert Hughes
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Perspective
The mind grows narrow in proportion as the soul grows corrupt.
~ Rousseau
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