“If there is any kindness I can show, or any good thing I can do to any fellow being, let me do it now, and not deter or neglect it, as I shall not pass this way again.”
William Penn, Sunbeams (Page 20)
Alan Watts Quote on The Present and How It’s Not A Result Of The Past
“Everyone automatically assumes that the present is the result of the past. Turn it around, and consider whether the past may not be a result of the present. The past may be streaming back from the now, like the country as seen from an airplane.”
Alan Watts, Sunbeams (Page 14)
Beyond the Quote (Day 388)
Seeing the past as being the cause of your present steals from you the accountability that’s needed to take ownership of your future. For, you can’t change the outcome of your future if you’re busy blaming what happened in the past. You have to realize, as Watts outlines above, that it’s the present that caused the past, not the past that caused the present.
Read More »Alan Watts Quote on The Present and How It’s Not A Result Of The PastEducated: A Memoir [Book]
Book Overview: Born to survivalists in the mountains of Idaho, Tara Westover was seventeen the first time she set foot in a classroom. Her family was so isolated from mainstream society that there was no one to ensure the children received an education, and no one to intervene when one of Tara’s older brothers became violent. When another brother got himself into college, Tara decided to try a new kind of life. Her quest for knowledge transformed her, taking her over oceans and across continents, to Harvard and to Cambridge University. Only then would she wonder if she’d traveled too far, if there was still a way home.
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Post(s) Inspired by this Book:
- 13 Poignant Tara Westover Quotes from Educated
- Tara Westover Quote on How Education Is About More Than Making A Living (Beyond the Quote Day 394)
- John Dewey Quote on Education and How The Process and The Goal Are One And The Same (Beyond the Quote Day 390)
“If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we would find in each man’s life a sorrow and a suffering enough to disarm all hostility.”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Sunbeams (Page 19)
“All truly wise thoughts have been thought already thousands of times; but to make them truly ours, we must think them over again honestly, till they take root in our personal experience.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Sunbeams (Page 19)
“Money only marginally changes life. It doesn’t solve the problems that people without it seem to think it will. In fact, no material possession will. External things can’t fix internal issues.”
Ryan Holiday, The Daily Stoic (Page 31)
R. Buckminster Fuller Quote on Truth and How It’s Completely Spontaneous
“Truth is completely spontaneous. Lies have to be taught.”
R. Buckminster Fuller, Sunbeams (Page 23)
Beyond the Quote (Day 387)
I suspect that most people overthink the act of being—and it’s easy to see why. Think about everything that we’re exposed to on a daily basis. All of the advertisements, the images, the messages, the conversations—and think about how each of them communicate a different way of being. You can be the person who does this; who buys that; who believes this; who supports that; who interacts here; who chooses to go there; who speaks up about this; who follows people like that; who dresses like this; who spends their time doing that… the possibilities for becoming are, quite literally, endless.
Read More »R. Buckminster Fuller Quote on Truth and How It’s Completely Spontaneous“This comes up all the time in mechanical work. A hang-up. You just sit and stare and think, and go search randomly for new information, and go away and come back again, and after a while the unseen factors start to emerge.”
Robert M. Pirsig, Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance, via Sunbeams (Page 18)
Alicia Keys Quote on Perfection and Being Okay With Our Imperfect Reality
“I tend to want every person to embody the best of humanity—for all of us to be givers and builders and dreamers. That’s not reality. At different seasons in life, we each fall into various categories. Even still, every one of us also has a strong behavioral tendency, and that is okay. I’m coming to terms with the fact that so-called perfection—this idea that everything should be beautiful and in order at all times—is just not going to happen.”
Alicia Keys, More Myself (Page 254)
Beyond the Quote (Day 386)
And as she says in her song, Authors of Forever, “Wherever you are, it’s alright / Whoever you are, it’s alright.” It’s okay to be who you are, where you are on your journey. None of us are perfect and we all lead imperfect lives. Expect perfection from someone—anyone—and you’ll always end up disappointed. Expect imperfection and you’ll at least be able to meet people where they are. Disappointment leads to emotional distancing and separation. Understanding leads to emotional advancing and connection.
Read More »Alicia Keys Quote on Perfection and Being Okay With Our Imperfect Reality“To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, day and night, to make you like everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight… It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.”
E. E. Cummings, via More Myself (Page 251)
“I don’t have to fit in. None of us does. Our uniqueness isn’t a scar, but a beauty mark. What makes us different is also what makes us wildly, boldly, and marvelously who we were born to be.”
Alicia Keys, More Myself (Page 250)
“There is a field where all wonderful perfections of microscope and telescope fail. All exquisite niceties of weights and measure as well as that which is behind them, the keen and driving power of the mind. No facts, however indubitably detected, no effort or reason, however magnificently maintained, can prove that Bach’s music is beautiful.”
Edith Hamilton, Sunbeams (Page 17)
“We have to be utterly broken before we can realize that it is impossible to better the truth. It is the truth that we deny which so tenderly and forgivingly picks up the fragments and puts them together again.”
Laurens Van der Post, Sunbeams (Page 17)
“Be like the bird, pausing in his flight
On limb too slight,
Feels it give way, yet sings,
Knowing he has wings.”
Victor Hugo, Sunbeams (Page 17)
C. Day Lewis Quote on Writing and How We Write To Understand; Not To Share What We Already Know
“I do not sit down at my desk to put into verse something that is already clear in my mind. If it were clear in my mind, I should have no incentive or need to write about it… We do not write in order to be understood; we write in order to understand.”
C. Day Lewis, The Poetic Image, via Sunbeams (Page 15)
Beyond the Quote (385/365)
It starts out as a feeling. An inquisition. A hunch. A curiosity. A reoccurring thought. An observation. An idea. A single line of text.
It proceeds as an exploration into the unknown. A navigating of unclear roads. A charting of unexplored territory. An unraveling of knotted up mental yarn. A sorting through of an unorganized desk. As trains of thought.
Read More »C. Day Lewis Quote on Writing and How We Write To Understand; Not To Share What We Already Know“True love has no object. Many speak of their unconditional love for another. Unconditional love is the experience of being; there is no ‘I’ and ‘other,’ and anyone or anything it touches is experienced in love. You cannot unconditionally love someone. You can only be unconditional love. It is not a dualistic emotion. It is a sense of oneness with all that is. The experience of love arises when we surrender our separateness into the universal. It is a feeling of unity. You don’t love another, you are another. There is no fear because there is no separation.”
Stephen Levine, Who Dies?, via Sunbeams (Page 15)
“Your principles can’t be extinguished unless you snuff out the thoughts that feed them, for it’s continually in your power to reignite new ones… It’s possible to start living again! See things anew as you once did—that is how to restart life!”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, via The Daily Stoic (Page 28)
“In life, we don’t get what we ask for. We get what we believe. And what we believe about ourselves shows up in our energy. It’s how we walk into a room. It’s how we communicate, through body language, I don’t deserve to be here. It’s whether we sit up straight or hide out in the back of a meeting. At times, my own energy has been saying, ‘I’m cool with the bare minimum. Don’t give me more.’ Without knowing it, I stunted my growth because I was scared to be magnificent and doubtful that I was. It’s possible to say you want a grand life but then continue to play small.”
Alicia Keys, More Myself (Page 249)
“I feared that if I shared my experience in its entirety, if I took the lid off my joy, it would push others away or make them feel small. As my career progressed, that tendency took another form in my interactions around the industry. I don’t need much. Nothing has to be too grand. I’m cool with my little piano, my bench, and a cup of water. In a sense, that was true. I’ve never been an over-the-top kind of girl. But what’s also true is this: Some part of my spirit was always signing up for less because that is what I believed I deserved. For many years, I thought I was being modest. I never wanted to come across as self-absorbed, or as someone with a big head. It’s how we women are brought up: Don’t ask for more. Don’t take credit. Don’t outshine others. But there on the couch, it hit me that my alleged modesty was just a disguise—a mask for a lack of self-worth.”
Alicia Keys, More Myself (Page 248)
“The path to self-discovery is not a straight line. It’s a zigzag. We move in and out of awareness: one step forward, three steps to the left, a baby step back, another leap forward. A lightbulb moment might shine brightly one day, but then flicker the next. It takes work to hold tightly to a certain consciousness, to live in its wisdom. Every day, I have to intentionally maintain an awareness of my value. I know I’m worthy. But you don’t cross over into the Land of Self-Worth and just become a permanent resident. You have to keep your passport current. You have to work to preserve your status.”
Alicia Keys, More Myself (Page 246)