“There is almost no situation in which hatred helps. Yet almost every situation is made better by love—or empathy, understanding, appreciation—even situations in which you are in opposition to someone. And who knows, you might just get some of that love back.”
Ryan Holiday, The Daily Stoic (Page 305)
“How rotten and fraudulent when people say they intend to ‘give it to you straight.’ What are you up to, dear friend? It shouldn’t need your announcement, but be readily seen as if written on your forehead, heard in the ring of your voice, a flash in your eyes—just as the beloved sees it all in the lover’s glance. In short, the straightforward and good person should be like a smelly goat—you know when they are in the room with you.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, via The Daily Stoic (Page 304)
“This is the true joy in life, the being used up for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances, complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the community, and as long as I live, it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work, the more I live. Life is no ‘brief candle’ for me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for a moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.”
George Bernard Shaw, via Sunbeams (Page 140)
“Turn your face to the sun and the shadows fall behind you.”
Maori proverb, via Sunbeams (Page 139)
“Work is life. Not having something to do with one’s life, something important or unique to your talents or however you put it, is a bigger killer than cancer.”
Ray Mungo, via Sunbeams (Page 138)
“All search for happiness is misery and leads to more misery. The only happiness worth the name is the natural happiness of conscious being.”
Nisargadatta Maharaj, via Sunbeams (Page 138)
“The good and the wise lead quiet lives.”
Euripides, via Sunbeams (Page 138)
“The beginning of all things are weak and tender. We must therefore be clear-sighted in the beginnings.”
Michel de Montaigne, via Twitter
“Art is the method of levitation, in order to separate one’s self from enslavement by the earth.”
Anaïs Nin, via Sunbeams (Page 137)
“A mother is not a person to lean on but a person to make leaning unnecessary.”
Dorothy C. Fisher, via Sunbeams (Page 137)
“If you are willing to discipline yourself, the physical universe won’t need to discipline you.”
Leonard Orr, via Sunbeams (Page 137)
“When we lay claim to the evil in ourselves, we no longer need fear its occurring outside of our control. For example, a patient comes into therapy complaining that he does not get along well with other people; somehow he always says the wrong thing and hurts their feelings. He is really a nice guy, just has this uncontrollable, neurotic problem. What he does not want to know is that his ‘unconscious hostility’ is not his problem, it’s his solution. He is really not a nice guy who wants to be good; he’s a bastard who wants to hurt other people while still thinking of himself as a nice guy. If the therapist can guide him into the pit of his own ugly soul, then there may be hope for him… Nothing about ourselves can be changed until it is first accepted.”
Sheldon Kopp, If You Meet The Buddha On the Road, Kill Him, via Sunbeams (Page 137)
“As human beings we all breathe the atoms that made up our ancestors and flow into the same earth when we die.”
Ryan Holiday, The Daily Stoic (Page 296)
“But the wise person can lose nothing. Such a person has everything stored up for themselves, leaving nothing to Fortune, their own goods are held firm, bound in virtue, which requires nothing from chance, and therefore can’t be either increased or diminished.”
Seneca, via The Daily Stoic (Page 295)
“Artistic growth is, more than it is anything else, a refining of the sense of truthfulness. The stupid believe that to be truthful is easy; only the artist, the great artist, knows how difficult it is.”
Willa Cather, via Sunbeams (Page 135)
“If your mind has developed a certain cast—the habit of panicking, then it won’t matter how good things get for you. You’re still primed for panic. Your mind will still find things to worry about, and you’ll still be miserable. Perhaps more so even, because now you have more to lose.”
Ryan Holiday, The Daily Stoic (Page 289)
“For me, success is not a public thing. It’s a private thing. It’s when you have fewer and fewer regrets.”
Toni Morrison, The Guardian
“Make yourself invulnerable to your dependency on comfort and convenience, or one day your vulnerability might bring you to your knees.”
Ryan Holiday, The Daily Stoic (Page 287)
“Show me someone who isn’t a slave! One is a slave to lust, another to greed, another to power, and all are slaves to fear. I could name a former Consul who is a slave to a little old woman, a millionaire who is the slave of the cleaning woman… No servitude is more abject than the self-imposed.”
Seneca, via The Daily Stoic (Page 287)