If you can’t write clearly, you probably don’t think nearly as well as you think you do.
~ Kurt Vonnegut
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Quotes
The fountain of content
The fountain of content must spring up in the mind, and he who hath so little knowledge of human nature as to seek happines by changing anything but his own disposition, will waste his life in fruitless efforts and multiply the grief he proposes to remove.
~ Samuel Johnson
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Show us you have learned
Eat like a human being, drink like a human being, dress up, marry, have children, get politically active — suffer abuse, bear with a headstrong brother, father, son, neighbor, or companion. Show us these things so we can see that you truly have learned from the philosophers.
~ Epictetus
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Neutral
Neutral is a state where you are not jumping ahead too quickly or moving too slowly. Neutral does not mean being inactive, complacent, or passive. It’s about a calm poise that allows for new information and new possibilities to emerge before taking further action. When in neutral you actually increase your sensitivity and intuitive intelligence. Neutral is fertile ground for new possibilities to grow from.
~ Doc Childre
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Circumstances
People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don’t believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can’t find them, make them.
~ George Bernard Shaw
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Plans
Plans get you into things, but you’ve got to work your way out.
~ Will Rogers
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A man of thought
Think like a man of action. Act like a man of thought.
~ Henri Bergson
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Willpower
The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather a lack of will.
~ Vince Lombardi
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Perspective
“The appearance of the bull changes when you enter the ring.” The matador’s point of view is different from the spectator’s.
~ Mexican proverb
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Level of consciousness
No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.
~ Albert Einstein
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Inaction
Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy.
~ Dale Carnegie
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Realize you do not understand
To realize that you do not understand is a virtue; Not to realize that you do not understand is a defect.
~ Lao Tzu
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Courage, part 3
Everyone has talent. What is rare is the courage to follow the talent to the dark place where it leads.
~ Erica Jong
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Living virtuously
Ambition means tying your well-being to what other people say or do.
~ Marcus Aurelius
Self-indulgence means tying it to the things that happen to you.
Sanity means tying it to your own actions.
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Carving
The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain. Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter’s oven? And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives?
~ Kahlil Gibran
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Then do patriots flourish
When a nation is filled with strife, then do patriots flourish.
~ Lao Tzu
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Heart
Before you embark on any path ask the question, does this path have a heart? If the answer is no, you will know it and then you must choose another path. The trouble is that nobody asks the question. And when a man finally realizes that he has taken a path without a heart the path is ready to kill him.
~ Carlos Castaneda
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I must die
I must die. If instantly, I will die instantly; If in a short time, I will dine first, since the hour for dining is here, and when the time comes, then I will die. How? As becomes a person who is giving back what is not his own.
~ Epictetus
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Courage, part 2
Courage is the price that Life exacts for granting peace.
~ Amelia Earhart
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Relationships
They who wanted to do each other good are now handling one another in an imperious and intolerant manner, and in the struggle somehow to get out of their untenable and unbearable state of confusion, they commit the greatest fault that can happen to human relationships: they become impatient.
~ Rainer Maria Rilke
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