“We have an irrational fear of acknowledging our own mortality. We avoid thinking about it because we think it will be depressing. In fact, reflecting on mortality often has the opposite effect—invigorating us more than saddening us. Why? Because it gives us clarity.”
Ryan Holiday, The Daily Stoic (Page 361)
Archives
“I have spent my days stringing and unstringing my instrument while the song I came to sing remains unsung.”
Rabindranath Tagore, via Sunbeams (Page 148)
“People seem not to see that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson, via Sunbeams (Page 148)
“The mind cannot long act the role of the heart”
François La Rochefoucauld, via Sunbeams (Page 148)
“If you wait for tomorrow, tomorrow comes. If you don’t wait for tomorrow, tomorrow comes.”
Senegalese Proverb, via Sunbeams (Page 148)
“We may claw and fight and work to own things, but those things can be taken away in a second. The same goes for other things we like to think are ‘ours’ but are equally precarious: our status, our physical health or strength, our relationships. How can these really be ours if something other than us—fate, bad luck, death, and so on—can dispossess us of them without notice? So what do we own? Just our lives—and not for long.”
Ryan Holiday, The Daily Stoic (Page 360)
“Let us prepare our minds as if we’d come to the very end of life. Let us postpone nothing. Let us balance life’s books each day… The one who puts the finishing touches on their life each day is never short of time.”
Seneca, Moral Letters, via The Daily Stoic (Page 349)
“Having a billion dollars is great, but having a billion seconds is priceless. There is no amount of money in the world that can purchase immortality. Every human eventually runs out of time.”
Anthony Pompliano, Blog
“Perhaps the greatest test of love is the way we act in times of need. It is the moment of accountability that all relationships seem to arc toward.”
Suleika Jaouad, Between Two Kingdoms (Page 281)
“At times, my heart feels so haunted that there’s no room for the living—for the possibility of new love, new loss.”
Suleika Jaouad, Between Two Kingdoms (Page 289)
“I’m realizing that if I am to cross the distance between near-death and renewal, instead of trying to bury my pain, I must use it as a guide to know myself better. In confronting my past, I have to reckon not only with the pain of losing other people but also with the pain I’ve caused others. I must keep seeking truths and teachers on these long, lonely stretches of highway even when—especially when—the search brings discomfort.”
Suleika Jaouad, Between Two Kingdoms (Page 283)
