To thrive amid unprecedented amounts of novelty, we must shift from being mere seekers of the new to being connoisseurs of it.
~ Winifred Gallagher
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Quotes
A long long time ago I began collecting inspirational quotes and aphorisms which became my collection of quotes.
But if you ask them
You know, Phaedrus, that is the strange thing about writing, which makes it truly correspond to painting. The painter’s products stand before us as though they were alive. But if you question them, they maintain a majestic silence. It is the same with written words. They seem to talk to you as though they were intelligent, but if you ask them anything about what they say from a desire to be instructed they go on telling just the same thing forever.
~ Socrates
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Serenity, Freedom
When you have considered all these things with care, then, if you think fit, approach philosophy, and be willing to give up all of this in exchange for serenity, freedom and an undisturbed mind. Otherwise, do not come near; do not, like children, be at one time a philosopher, later a tax-collector, then a rhetorititian, and then one of Caesar’s procurators. These things are not compatible. You must be one man, either good or bad. You must cultivate either your own ruling faculty or externals, and apply yourself either to things within or those outside; that is, you must assume either the attitude of a philosopher or that of a layman.
~ Epictetus
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Involve me
Tell me and I’ll forget;
~ Chinese proverb
Show me and I may remember;
Involve me and I’ll understand.
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On becoming somebody
No sign of any good habit, no attention or regard to yourselves. You do not watch yourself closely and ask, “How do I deal with the impressions that befall me? In accordance with nature or contrary to nature? As I ought, or as I ought not to? Do I say to the things that lie outside the sphere of choice that they are nothing to me?” If you are not yet in this state, fly from your former habits, fly from all laymen, if you ever want to make a start on becoming somebody.
~ Epictetus
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Danger, disquiet, anxiety attend
To trace something unknown back to something known is alleviating, soothing, gratifying and gives moreover a feeling of power. Danger, disquiet, anxiety attend the unknown—the first instinct is to eliminate these distressing states. First principle: Any explanation is better than none […] the cause-creating drive is thus conditioned and excited by the feeling of fear.
~ Friederich Nietzsche
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Training
For who is the man under training? The man who practices not exercising his desire, and directing this aversion only to things that lie within the sphere of choice, and who practices the hardest in the things most difficult to achieve. So different people will have to practice harder in different respects.
~ Epictetus
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Death does not frighten me
When evening has come, I return to my house and go into my study. At the door I take off my clothes of the day, covered with mud and mire, and I put on my regal and courtly garments; and decently reclothed, I enter the ancient courts of ancient men, where, received by them lovingly, I feed on the food that alone is mine and that I was born for. There I am not ashamed to speak with them and to ask them the reasons for their actions; and they in their humanity reply to me. And for the space of four hours I feel no boredom, I forget every pain, I do not fear poverty, death does not frighten me. I deliver myself entirely to them.
~ Niccolò Machiavelli
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Invincible
The good man is invincible; for he engages in no contest where he is not superior. “If you want my land, take it, and take my servants, take my public post, take my poor body. But you will not cause my desire to fail to attain its end, or my aversion to fall into what it would avoid.” This is the only contest he enters into: How can he fail, then, to be invincible?
~ Epictetus
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The line is drawn
The line it is drawn, the curse it is cast
~ Bob Dylan
The slow one now, will later be fast
As the present now, will later be past
The order is rapidly fadin’
And the first one now, will later be last
For the times they are a-changin’
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My own improvement
But what does Socrates say? “As one man rejoices in the improvement of his land, and another in that of his horse, so I rejoice day by day in following my own improvement.
~ Epictetus
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Unjustified terror
Let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.
~ Franklin Delano Roosevelt
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In care of my own faculty of choice
What would you like to be doing when you are overtaken by [disease and death]? For you surely will be, whatever you are doing. If you think you could be doing something better than this when you are overtaken, go and do it. For my own part, may death overtake me while I am engaged in nothing other than the care of my own faculty of choice, so that it may be unhindered, unrestrained, serene, and free.
~ Epictetus
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Likewise disturbed
The soul is like a vessel filled with water; and impressions are like a ray of light that falls upon the water. If the water is disturbed, the ray will seem to be disturbed likewise, though in reality it is not.
~ Epictetus
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When you gaze into the abyss
Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster. For when you gaze long into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.
~ Friedrich Nietzsche
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Never be poor
If you shape your life according to nature, you will never be poor. If you shape your lie according to people’s opinions, you will never be rich.
~ Epicurus
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Your faculty of reason
You are a human being; that is, a mortal animal capable of making a rational use of impressions. And what does it mean to use them rationally? In accordance with nature and perfectly. What is exceptional in you? Is it the animal part? No. The mortal? No. That which enables you to deal with impressions? No. What is exceptional in you is your faculty of reason.
~ Epictetus
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Blame yourself
Socrates knew how a rational soul is moved; that it is like a balance, and if a weight is thrown in the scale, it will incline whether you wish it or not. Show the rational governing faculty a contradiction, and it will renounce it; but if you fail to do so, blame yourself rather than the person whom you are unable to convince.
~ Epictetus
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The mid-point
At the mid-point of the path through life, I found myself lost in a wood so dark, the way ahead was blotted out. The keening sound I still make shows how hard it is to say how harsh and bitter that place felt to me —
~ Dante
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Success
The difference between successful people and very successful people is that very successful people say no to almost everything.
~ Warren Buffett
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