Passion

Passion makes us feel, but never see clearly.

~ Bulwer-Lytton

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Ritual

Ritual is not the re-enactment of a past event. It is the re-enactment of meaning.

~ David Whyte

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Tranquility

[Do not disquiet] yourself by running about from place to place. Thrashing around in that way indicates a mind in poor health. In my view, the first sign of a settled mind is that it can stay in one place and spend time with itself.

~ Seneca

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Persistence

Consider this mindset:

never in a hurry
never worried
never desperate
never stopping short

As Epictetus once summarized his entire philosophy: Persist and resist. Persist in your efforts. Resist giving in to distraction, discouragement, or disorder.

~ Ryan Holiday

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The job

A man’s job is to make the world a better place to live in, so far as he is able—always remembering the results will be infinitesimal—and to attend to his own soul.

~ Leroy Percy

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Problems

The machine does not isolate man from the great problems of nature but plunges him more deeply into them.

~ Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

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Future

The present moment was once the unimaginable future.

~ Stewart Brand

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First judgements

[R]eject the first judgements and the objections that spring out of them because those objections are so often rooted in fear. […] This is radically different from how we’ve been taught to act. Be realistic, we’re told. Listen to feedback. Play well with others. Compromise. Well, what if the “other” party is wrong? What if conventional wisdom is too conservative? It’s this all-too-common impulse to complain, defer, and then give up that holds us back.

~ Ryan Holiday

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Desperation

People are getting a little desperate. They might not show their best elements to you. You must never lower yourself to being a person you don’t like. There is no better time than now to have a moral and civic backbone. To have a moral and civic true north. This is a tremendous opportunity for you, a young person, to be heroic.

~ Henry Rollins

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Self-conceit

Peole who do not know how to laugh are always pompous and self-conceited.

~ William Makepeace Thackeray

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