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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Quotes
A long long time ago I began collecting inspirational quotes and aphorisms which became my collection of quotes.
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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A bad example
Nothing is more harmful than a bad example set by others. They bring into our life notions which never would have occurred to us without an example.
~ Leo Tolstoy
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Happiness
Pleasure, luxury—these things you call happiness, but I think that to wish nothing is the happiness of god, and when you wish to have only small things, then you make yourself closer to this divine and high happiness.
~ Socrates
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What is philosophy for?
Philosophy isn’t a parlor trick or made for show. It’s not concerned with words, but with facts. It’s not employed for some pleasure before the day is spent, or to relieve the uneasiness of our leisure. It shapes and builds up the soul, it gives order to life, guides actions, shows what should and shouldn’t be done—it sits at the rudder steering our course as we vacillate in uncertainties. Without it, no one can live without fear or free from care. Countless things happen every hour that require advice, and such advise is to be sought out in philosophy.
~ Seneca
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Two guides
Two ways exist to guide human activity. One is to force a person to act against his wishes; The other is to guide a person’s wishes, to persuade him with reasoning. One is the way of violence: It is used by ignorant people, and it leads to complete disappointment. The other is supported by experience, and is always successful.
~ Abraham Comb
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Listen
To have a dialog
~ Antonio Machado
First: Ask a question
Then: Listen
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Other people’s thoughts
For the most part, false and harmful opinions are distributed and supported by influence. We are too likely to accept the views and thoughts of other people without trying to investigate them deeper and further ourselves. Unimportant people are those who accept other people’s thoughts without developing them themselves.
~ Leo Tolstoy
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Making choices
To create art we make choices. We do it with intent, seeking to make a change for certain people. When we find that our choices didn’t succeed, vulnerability with lots of personal angst is an available choice. The alternative is to learn from what didn’t resonate. Was it our choices in how we did the work, or did we bring this work to the wrong audience? You are not your work. Your work is a series of choices made with generous intent to cause something to happen. We can always learn to make better choices.
~ Seth Godin
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Tradition
For the majority of mankind, religion is a habit, or, more precisely, tradition is their religion. Though it seems strange, I think that the first step to moral perfection is your liberation from the religion in which you were raised. Not a single person has come to perfection except by following this way.
~ Henry David Thoreau
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The more you say
The more you say, the more likely you are to blow past opportunities, ignore feedback, and cause yourself suffering. The inexperienced and fearful talk to reassure themselves. The ability to listen, to deliberately keep out of a conversation and subsist without its validity is rare. Silence is a way to build strength and self-sufficiency.
~ Ryan Holiday
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The moral
The moral? To recognize that our best chance of contentment lies in taking up the wisdom offered to us in coded form through our coughs, allergies, social gaffes and emotional betrayals, and to avoid the ingratitude of those who blame the peas, the bores, the time and the weather.
~ Alaine De Botton
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Mistakes
Not to accept your mistakes is to increase them.
~ Leo Tolstoy
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Capability
Every person has within himself the capability to understand the life of all humanity. This capability is hidden deep in the soul, but it exists, and sooner or later, a person will find it.
~ Edward Carpenter
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