Teach them

If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.

~ Antoine de Saint-Exupery

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Always pass on good advice

I always pass on good advice. It is the only thing to do with it. It is never of any use to oneself.

~ Oscar Wilde

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The character of your mind

Such as are your habitual thoughts, such also will be the character of your mind.

~ Marcus Aurelius

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Excellence is a habit

We are what we repeatedly do, therefore, excellence is not an act but a habit

~ Aristotle

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Think for oneself

A man who does not think for himself does not think at all.

~ Oscar Wilde

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What is a cynic?

What is a cynic? A man who knows the price of everything but the value of nothing.

~ Oscar Wilde

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Inward loosening

Martial art is not merely the physical act of filling time and space with precision-like movements. Machines can do that, too. As he matures, a martial artist will realize that his kick or punch is really not so much a tool to conquer his opponent, but a tool to explode through his consciousness, his ego, and all mental obstacles. Indeed, the tools are ultimately a means for penetrating the depth of his being so that he will restore the equilibrium of his inner center of gravity. With this vital inward loosening flows his outward expression of his tools. Behind each physical movement of an accomplished martial artist is this wholeness of being, this all-inclusive attitude.

~ Bruce Lee

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The triumph of principles

A political victory, a rise in rents, the recovery of your sick, or return of your absent friend, or some other quite external event, raises your spirits, and you think good days are preparing for you. Do not believe it. Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing can bring you peace by the triumph of principles.

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The power to break your back

If you can lighten your burden you must do so. There is no straw which lacks the power to break your back.

~ unknown

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All comes out even at the end

Weak as I am, I carry on the war to the last moment, I get a hundred pike thrusts, I return two hundred and I laugh. I see near my door Geneva on fire with quarrels over nothing, and I laugh again; And, thank god, I can look upon the world as a farce even when it becomes as tragic as it sometimes does. All comes out even at the end of the day, and all comes out still more even when all the days are over.

~ Voltaire

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