What their minds are like. What they work at. What evokes their love and admiration. Imagine their souls stripped bare. And their vanity. To suppose that their disdain could harm anyone—or their praise help them.
~ Marcus Aurelius
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Quotes
Your time is limited
… death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because death is very likely the single best invention of life. It’s life’s change agent; it clears out the old to make way for the new … your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.
~ Steve Jobs
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Willing acceptance
To do harm is to do yourself harm. To do an injustice is to do yourself an injustice—it degrades you.
And you can also commit injustice by doing nothing.
Objective judgement, now, at this very moment. Unselfish action, now, at this very moment. Willing acceptance—now, at this very moment—of all external events.
That’s all you need.
~ Marcus Aurelius
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Final step
For many, the first step on a spiritual journey is to become lost. The final step is losing one’s self.
~ Wu Hsin
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The existence of evil
The existence of evil does not harm the world. And an individual act of evil does not harm the victim. Only one person is harmed by it—and he can stop being harmed as soon as he decides to.
~ Marcus Aurelius
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Avoiding unrighteousness
The difficulty, my friends, is not in avoiding death, but in avoiding unrighteousness; For that runs faster than death. I am old and move slowly, and the slower runner has overtaken me, and my accusers are keen and quick, and the faster runner, who is unrighteousness, has overtaken them. And now I depart hence condemned by you to suffer the penalty of death, and they too go their ways condemned by the truth to suffer the penalty of villainy and wrong; And I must abide by my award—let them abide by theirs.
~ Socrates
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Those who understand
The cucumber is bitter? Then throw it out. There are brambles in the path? Then go around them. That’s all you need to know. Nothing more. Don’t demand to know, “why such things exist.” Anyone who understands the world will laugh at you, just as a carpenter would if you seemed shocked at finding sawdust in his workshop, or a shoemaker at scraps of leather left over from work.
~ Marcus Aurelius
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Expectations
When you start something, don’t raise other people’s expectations. What is highly praised seldom measures up to expectations. Reality never catches up to imagination. It is easy to imagine something is perfect, and difficult to achieve it. […] Honorable beginnings should serve to awaken curiosity, not to heighten people’s expectations. We are much better off when reality surpasses our expectations, and something turns out better than we thought it would.
~ Baltasar Gracián
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Impressions
Nothing but what you get from first impressions. That someone has insulted you for instance. That —but not that it’s done you any harm. The fact that my son is sick —that I can see. But, “that he might die of it,” no. Stick with first impressions. Don’t extrapolate. And nothing can happen to you. Or extrapolate. From a knowledge of all that can happen in the world.
~ Marcus Aurelius
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Peace
What is called peace by many is merely the absence of disturbance. True peace cannot be distrubed; It resides beyond the reach of disturbance.
~ Wu Hsin
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The mind is a fortress
Remember that when it withdraws into itself and finds contentment there, the mind is invulnerable. It does nothing against its will, even if its resistance is irrational. And if its judgement is deliberate and grounded in logic…? The mind without passions is a fortress. No place is more secure. Once we take refuge there we are safe forever. Not to see this is ignorance. To See it and not seek safety means misery.
~ Marcus Aurelius
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Fries
Giving the public what the public supposedly wants is like asking your kids what they want for dinner and they say, “oh, we want fries.”
~ Francis Ford Coppola
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Embracing the obstacles
External things are not the problem. It’s your assessment of them. Which you can erase right now. If the problem is something in your own character, who’s stopping you from setting your mind straight? And if it’s that you’re not doing something you think you should be, why not just do it? —But here are insuperable obstacles. Then it’s not a problem. The cause of your inaction lies outside you. —But how can I go on living with that undone? Then depart, with a good conscience, as if you’d done it, embracing the obstacles too.
~ Marcus Aurelius, 8.47
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Fortune
Good fortune has its own rules, and to the wise not everything depends upon chance. Fortune is helped along by effort.
~ Baltasar Gracián
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The present moment
Give yourself a gift: The present moment. People out for posthumous fame forget that the Generations To Come will be the same annoying people they know now. And just as mortal. What does it matter to you if they say x about you or think y?
~ Marcus Aurelius
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The source of yearning
Chasing after the things one yearns for is inferior to chasing after the source of the yearning.
~ Wu Hsin
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Correct opinions
For this reason philosophers exhort us not to be contented with mere learning, but to add practice also, and then training. For we have long been accustomed to do the opposite of what we should, and the opinions that we hold and apply are the opposite of the correct ones. If, therefore, we do not also adopt and apply the correct opinions, we shall be nothing more than interpreters of the judgements of others.
~ Epictetus
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Only the present
Don’t let your imagination be crushed by life as a whole. Don’t try to picture everything bad that could possibly happen. Stick with the situation at hand, and ask, “Why is this so unbearable? Why can’t I endure it?” You’ll be embarrassed to answer. Then remind yourself that past and future have no power over you. Only the present—and even that can be minimized. Just mark off its limits. And if your mind tries to claim that it can’t hold out against that… well, then, heap shame upon it.
~ Marcus Aurelius
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Faith that you can
The first thing you need to know is that individuals have far more power than ever before in history. […] The second thing you need to know is that the only thing holding you back from becoming the kind of person who changes things is this: Lack of faith. Faith that you can do it. Faith that it’s worth doing. Faith that failure won’t destroy you.
~ Seth Godin
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Destruction
When vision fails,
~ Octavia Butler
Direction is lost.
When direction is lost,
Purpose may be forgotten.
When purpose is forgotten,
Emotion rules alone.
When emotion rules alone,
Destruction… destruction.
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