The art of using moderate abilities to advantage wins praise, and often acquires more reputation than actual brilliance.
~ Rochefoucauld
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Moderate →
Strike at the root →
There are thousands hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.
~ Henry David Thoreau
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Truth →
Remember that truth is the greatest thing in the world. If you will be great, you will be true. If you suppress the truth, if you hide truth, if you do not rise up and speak out in meeting, if you speak out in meeting without speaking the whole truth, then are you less true than truth and by that much are you less than great.
~ Jack London
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Going full circle →
No matter where your adventure takes you, most of what is truly meaningful is still to be found revolving around the mundane stuff you did before you embarked on your adventure. The stuff that’ll be still be going on long after you and I are both dead, long after our contribution to the world is forgotten.But often, one needs to have that big adventure before truly appreciating this. Going full circle. Exactly.
~ Hugh MacLeod
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Loving-kindness →
Happiest day in seven years. And what did it take to achieve that? It took 10 seconds of secretly wishing for 2 other people to be happy for 8 repetitions, a total of 80 seconds of thinking. That, my friends, is the awesome power of loving-kindness.
~ Chade-Meng Tan
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Words and actions →
An able man shows his spirit by gentle words and resolute actions.
~ Chesterfield
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Choices →
What has this unfeeling age of ours left untried, what wickedness has it shunned?
~ Horace
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Three great things →
The three great things of life are: Good health; Work; And a philosophy of life. I may add, nay, must add, a fourth—Sincerity. Without this, the other three are without avail; And with it you may cleave to greatness and sit among giants.
~ Jack London
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Excellence is a moral act →
… excellence is not a law of physics. Excellence is a moral act.
~ Huch MacLeod
You create excellence by deciding to do so, nothing more. It doesn’t matter if you went to the wrong school, or were born on the wrong side of the tracks, or working the wrong job.
You go into the situation and you go the extra mile. Your decision. You own it. You own the potential downsides as well.
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In summary →
The chronological summary of a man’s life is of all composition for students perhaps the most futile. […] “What of it?” remains to be asked at the end; And if the student begin there, not rewriting the annals, but seeking throughout the characteristic traits, the typical activities, the expression of individuality, he will find no better practice. Thus not only the reader, but far more the writer, gains by the abandoning of the order of chronology.
~ Charles Sears Baldwin
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