The impulse to keep to yourself what you have learned is not only shameful, it is destructive. Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you. You open your safe and find ashes.
~ Annie Dillard
slip:4a1433.
Quotes
Confidence
The greater the artist, the greater the doubt. Perfect confidence is granted to the less talented as a consolation prize.
~ Robert Hughes
slip:4a1432.
Perspective
The mind grows narrow in proportion as the soul grows corrupt.
~ Rousseau
slip:4a1431.
Wisdom
I’ve come to believe that wise people don’t tell us what to do; They start by witnessing our story. They take the anecdotes, rationalizations, and episodes we tell, and see us in a noble struggle. They see the way we’re navigating the dialectics of life—intimacy versus independence, control versus uncertainty—and understand that our current self is just where we are right now, part of a long continuum of growth.
~ David Brooks
slip:4a1430.
Listening
When people realize they’re being listened to, they tell you things.
~ Richard Ford
slip:4a1429.
Virtue
Beauty vanishes; Virtue is lasting.
~ Goethe
slip:4a1428.
Creativity
The truth is that one day you hate yourself, and the next day you can’t wait to use your gifts.
~ Adam J. Kurtz
slip:4a1427.
The mind
The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.
~ Milton
slip:4a1426.
Discovery
Part of the act of creating is in discovering your own kind. They are everywhere. But don’t look for them in the wrong places.
~ Henry Miller
slip:4a1425.
Patience
Be patient. You’ll know when it’s time for you to wake up and move ahead.
~ Ram Dass
slip:4a1424.
Books
Books can be dangerous. The best ones should be labeled ‘This could change your life.’
~ Helen Exley
slip:4a1423.
Journaling
I find that whatever hindrances occur I write just about the same amount of truth in my journal; For the record is more concentrated, and usually it is so very real and earnest life, after all, that interrupts. All flourishes are omitted.
~ H. D. Thoreau
slip:4a1422.
Possibility
I have rarely sat down at my desk with something to say, other than I am ready. The sitting comes first, turning up with a certain alertness to possibility. Only then does the idea feel free to settle. It settles small and very tentatively, then, through your active attention, it can grow into something much bigger. Sitting in a readied state can sometimes last a long and anxious time. But you must not despair! I have never found a situation where the idea refuses to come to the prepared mind.
~ Nick Cave
slip:4a1421.
Reset
Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you.
~ Anne Lamott
slip:4a1420.
Dedication
I ain’t going to give up. Every time you think I’m one place, I’m going to show up someplace else. I come pre-hated. Take your best shot.
~ Cyndi Lauper
slip:4a1419.
Minds
A mind once cultivated will not lie fallow for half an hour.
~ Bulwer-Lyton
slip:4a1418.
Projection
What you meet in another being is the projection of your own level of evolution.
~ Ram Dass
slip:4a1417.
Success
This week I’ve been reading a lot and doing little work. That’s the way things ought to be. That’s surely the road to success.
~ Anne Frank
slip:4a1416.
Luck
Above all, recognize that if you have had success, you have also had luck—and with luck comes obligation. You owe a debt, and not just to your gods. You owe a debt to the unlucky.
~ Michael Lewis
slip:4a1415.
Humility
A man must have a good deal of vanity who believes, and a good deal of boldness who affirms, that all the doctrines he holds are true, and all he rejects are false.
~ Benjamin Franklin
slip:4a1414.