It’s the very last thing, isn’t it, that we feel grateful for: having happened. You know, you needn’t have happened. You needn’t have happened. But you did happen.
~ Douglas Harding
slip:4a454.
Quotes
Reading is a superpower
The genuine love for reading itself, when cultivated, is a superpower. We live in the age of Alexandria, when every book and every piece of knowledge ever written down is a fingertip away. The means of learning are abundant—it’s the desire to learn that’s scarce. Cultivate that desire by reading what you want, not what you’re “supposed to.”
~ Naval Ravikant
slip:4a180.
Real satisfaction
Real work and real satisfaction come from the opposite of what the web provides. They come from going deep into something—the book you’re writing, the album, the movie—and staying there for a long, long time.
~ Steven Pressfield
slip:4a322.
Our deepest fear
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be?
~ Marianne Williamson
slip:4a544.
My other faults
If anyone tells you that a person speaks ill of you, don’t make excuses about what is said of you, but answer: ‘He does not know my other faults, or he would not have mentioned only these.’
~ Epictetus
slip:4a112.
If you do not know
The world will ask you who you are, and if you do not know, the world will tell you.
~ Carl Jung
slip:4a248.
Society does not exist
Society exists only as a mental concept; in the real world there are only individuals.
~ Oscar Wilde
slip:4a466.
Control
I learned then that even when I felt powerless to control my job or education — or anything else that seemed out of my hands — I always had control over my own mind and how I treated others. Even when I had nothing else, I could still be kind, just, generous, honest, loving and compassionate.
~ Susan Fowler
slip:4a1138.
Teach them
If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.
~ Antoine de Saint-Exupery
slip:4a469.
Always pass on good advice
I always pass on good advice. It is the only thing to do with it. It is never of any use to oneself.
~ Oscar Wilde
slip:4a125.
The character of your mind
Such as are your habitual thoughts, such also will be the character of your mind.
~ Marcus Aurelius
slip:4a185.
War is not wicked
As long as war is regarded as wicked, it will always have its fascination. When it is looked upon as vulgar, it will cease to be popular.
~ Oscar Wilde
slip:4a174.
Excellence is a habit
We are what we repeatedly do, therefore, excellence is not an act but a habit
~ Aristotle
slip:4a22.
Look at that
In outer space you develop an instant global consciousness, a people orientation, an intense dissatisfaction with the state of the world, and a compulsion to do something about it. From out there on the moon, international politics looks so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, “Look at that, you son of a bitch.”
~ Edgar Mitchell
slip:4a549.
Think for oneself
A man who does not think for himself does not think at all.
~ Oscar Wilde
slip:4a143.
Hardly seems worth doing
Anything that doesn’t take years of your life and drive you to suicide hardly seems worth doing.
~ Cormac McCarthy
slip:4a232.
Straight-forward kindness
“Straight forward kindess” works in a world of endless human train wrecks.
~ Hugh MacLeod
slip:4a233.
What is a cynic?
What is a cynic? A man who knows the price of everything but the value of nothing.
~ Oscar Wilde
slip:4a552.
Inward loosening
Martial art is not merely the physical act of filling time and space with precision-like movements. Machines can do that, too. As he matures, a martial artist will realize that his kick or punch is really not so much a tool to conquer his opponent, but a tool to explode through his consciousness, his ego, and all mental obstacles. Indeed, the tools are ultimately a means for penetrating the depth of his being so that he will restore the equilibrium of his inner center of gravity. With this vital inward loosening flows his outward expression of his tools. Behind each physical movement of an accomplished martial artist is this wholeness of being, this all-inclusive attitude.
~ Bruce Lee
slip:4a895.
No skin in the game
It’s easy to spot a purist. They’re the ones without any skin in the game.
~ Hugh MacLeod
slip:4a483.