The secret to doing good research is always to be a little underemployed. You waste years by not being able to waste hours.
~ Amos Tversky
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Underemployed →
Place →
When you get older, you realize it’s a lot less about your place in the world but your place in you. It’s not how everyone views you, but how you view yourself.
~ Natalie Portman
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Idleness →
[H]ad I my life to arrange over again, I would do again as I have done. Only those who have lived at the full stretch seven days a week for a long time can appreciate the full beauty of a regular recurring idleness. Moreover, I am ageing. And it is a question of age. In cases of a bounding youth and exceptional energy and desire for effort I should say unhesitatingly: Keep going, day in, day out.
~ Arnold Bennett
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More than just questions →
Questions alone are not enough. Context matters. The mind-set that people bring to the room matters. How people came to be in the room matters. The room itself matters. The social structure of how people talk to each other matters. The action of the leader/convener matters.
~ Peter Block
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Speak →
All I insist on, and nothing else, is that you should show the whole world that you are not afraid. Be silent, if you choose; but when it is necessary, speak—and speak in such a way that people will remember it.
~ Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
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Crazy →
If you want these crazy ideas and these crazy stages, this crazy music, and this crazy way of thinking, there’s a chance it might come from a crazy person.
~ Kayne West
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The letter kills →
Individually and collectively, men have always been the victim of their own words […] Taken too seriously, symbols have motivated and justified all the horrors of recorded history. On every level from the personal to the international, the letter kills. Theoretically we know this very well. In practice, nevertheless, we continue to commit the suicidal blunders to which we have become accustomed.
~ Aldous Huxley
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Society →
Society is not some grand abstraction, my friends. It’s just us. It’s the words we use, which are the thoughts we have, which determine the actions we take.
~ Umair Haque
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Shame →
While you can still avoid shame by hiding, you won’t find happiness or even stability that way. The thing is, shame is a choice. It’s worth repeating: Shame can’t be forced on you; it must be accepted. The artist, then, combines courage with a fierce willingness to refuse to accept shame. Blame, sure. Shame, never. Where is the shame in using our best intent to make art for those we care about?
~ Seth Godin
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The future →
No amount of sophistication is going to allay the fact that all your knowledge is about the past and all your decisions are about the future.
~ Ian Wilson
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