Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster. For when you gaze long into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.
~ Friedrich Nietzsche
Elsewhere, this is 4a371. — slipbox
When you gaze into the abyss →
Never be poor →
Your faculty of reason →
You are a human being; that is, a mortal animal capable of making a rational use of impressions. And what does it mean to use them rationally? In accordance with nature and perfectly. What is exceptional in you? Is it the animal part? No. The mortal? No. That which enables you to deal with impressions? No. What is exceptional in you is your faculty of reason.
~ Epictetus
Elsewhere, this is 4a391. — slipbox
Blame yourself →
Socrates knew how a rational soul is moved; that it is like a balance, and if a weight is thrown in the scale, it will incline whether you wish it or not. Show the rational governing faculty a contradiction, and it will renounce it; but if you fail to do so, blame yourself rather than the person whom you are unable to convince.
~ Epictetus
Elsewhere, this is 4a333. — slipbox
The mid-point →
Success →
The difference between successful people and very successful people is that very successful people say no to almost everything.
~ Warren Buffett
Elsewhere, this is 4a377. — slipbox
Convince me →
When one of the company said to him, “convince me that logic is useful,” he said, … Would you like me to demonstrate it to you? Then I must make use of a demonstrative argument? And how will you know, then, whether I am deceiving you with a sophism? And when the man remained silent, he said, … You see how you yourself admit that logic is necessary, since without it you cannot even determine whether it is necessary or not.
~ Epictetus
Elsewhere, this is 4a313. — slipbox
24 by 365: Why? →
Work will happen 24 hours a day, 365 days of the year, if you let it. We are all in that place where we are all letting it for some reason, and I don’t know why.
~ Shonda Rhimes
Elsewhere, this is 4a375. — slipbox
The rational soul →
Characteristics of the rational soul: Self-perception, self-examination, and the power to make of itself whatever it wants. … It surveys the world and the empty space around it, and the way it’s put together. It delves into the endlessness of time to extend its grasp and comprehension of the periodic births and rebirths that the world goes through. It knows that those who came after us will see nothing different, that those who came before us saw no more than we do, and that anyone with forty years behind him and eyes in his head has seen both past and future—both alike.
~ Marcus Aurelius
Elsewhere, this is 4a461. — slipbox
Intelligent dissent →
Find more pleasure in intelligent dissent than in passive agreement, for, if you value intelligence as you should, the former implies a deeper agreement than the latter.
~ Bertrand Russell
Elsewhere, this is 4a368. — slipbox