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
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A man who does not think for himself does not think at all.
~ Oscar Wilde
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Anything that doesn’t take years of your life and drive you to suicide hardly seems worth doing.
~ Cormac McCarthy
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“Straight forward kindess” works in a world of endless human train wrecks.
~ Hugh MacLeod
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What is a cynic? A man who knows the price of everything but the value of nothing.
~ Oscar Wilde
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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
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It’s easy to spot a purist. They’re the ones without any skin in the game.
~ Hugh MacLeod
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Be happy while you’re living, for you’re a long time dead.
~ Scottish proverb
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Our soul is sometimes a king, and sometimes a tyrant. A king, by attending to what is honorable, protects the good health of the body in its care, and gives it no base or sordid command. But an uncontrolled, desire-fueled, over-indulged soul is turned from a king into that most feared and detested thing — a tyrant.
~ Seneca
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22. Nobody cares. Do it for yourself.
Everybody is too busy with their own lives to give a damn about your book, painting, screenplay etc, especially if you haven’t sold it yet. And the ones that aren’t, you don’t want in your life anyway.
~ Jason Korman
A political victory, a rise in rents, the recovery of your sick, or return of your absent friend, or some other quite external event, raises your spirits, and you think good days are preparing for you. Do not believe it. Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing can bring you peace by the triumph of principles.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
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The world is a hellish place, and bad writing is destroying the quality of our suffering.
~ Tom Waits
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Everyone has a purpose in life. Perhaps yours is watching television.
~ David Letterman
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Everything is created twice, first in the mind and then in reality.
~ Robin Sharma
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If you can lighten your burden you must do so. There is no straw which lacks the power to break your back.
~ unknown
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Weak as I am, I carry on the war to the last moment, I get a hundred pike thrusts, I return two hundred and I laugh. I see near my door Geneva on fire with quarrels over nothing, and I laugh again; And, thank god, I can look upon the world as a farce even when it becomes as tragic as it sometimes does. All comes out even at the end of the day, and all comes out still more even when all the days are over.
~ Voltaire
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Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world. It is the only thing that ever has.
~ Margaret Mead
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And what better use could you make of that time? A day that could be your last — you want to spend it in worry? In what other area could you make some progress while others might be sitting on the edges of their seat, passively awaiting some fate? Let the news come when it does. Be too busy working to care.
~ Ryan Holiday
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A self-respecting artist must not fold his hands on the pretext that he is not in the mood.
~ E. B. White
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Just as the nature of rational things has given to each person their rational powers, so it also gives us this power – Just as nature turns to its own purpose any obstacle or any opposition, sets its place in the destined order, and co-ops it, so every rational person can convert any obstacle into the raw material for their own purpose.
~ Marcus Aurelius
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