“Without trust, words become the hollow sound of a wooden gong. With trust, words become life itself.”
John Harold, via Sunbeams (Page 128)
“The longer you’ve trusted someone, the more likely they are to be trustworthy. The longer an idea excites you, the more likely you are to enjoy doing it. The longer you wait before making a major life decision (marriage, career, etc.), the more likely that decision is to be good.”
Mark Manson, Blog
“As an organizer I start from where the world is, as it is, not as I would like it to be. That we accept the world as it is does not in any sense weaken our desire to change it into what we believe it should be—it is necessary to begin where the world is if we are going to change it to what we think it should be.”
Saul Alinsky, Rules for Radicals, via The Daily Stoic (Page 237)
“People always wonder if they’re too old to do XYZ. It has been said that every 7 years, each cell in your body has been entirely replaced. Biology is my worst subject, so that could be wrong. But 7 is a magic number. It takes approximately 7 years to get 10,000 hours in to something. In any period of 7 years, I guarantee anyone you know will look back and say “Boy did I change.” It is never too late to 100% reinvent yourself. 21 to 28 still leaves most of your life. 42 to 49 still leaves nearly half of your life. Between 21 and 49 you will have lived 4 lives. That’s mastery in 4 different fields in the prime of your life. That’s important.”
Jordan Allen, Quora
“Kindness is more important than wisdom, and the recognition of this is the beginning of wisdom.”
Theodore Isaac Rubin, via Sunbeams (Page 127)
“I never dreamed of being a Shakespeare or Goethe, and I never expected to hold the great mirror of truth up before the world; I dreamed only of being a little pocked mirror, the sort that a woman can carry in her purse; one that reflects small blemishes, and some great beauties, when held close enough to the heart.”
Peter Altenberg, via Sunbeams (Page 126)
“Lonely people talking to each other can make each other lonelier.”
Lillian Hellman, The Autumn Garden, via Sunbeams (Page 125)
“But as she has grown, her smile has widened with a touch of fear and her glance has taken on depth. Now she is aware of some of the losses you incur by being here—the extraordinary rent you have to pay as long as you stay.”
Annie Dillard, via Sunbeams (Page 126)
“Let us face a pluralistic world in which there are no universal churches, no single remedy for all diseases, no one way to teach or write or sing, no magic diet, no world poets, and no chosen races, but only the wretched and wonderfully diversified human race.”
Jacques Barzun, via Sunbeams (Page 126)
“One windy day two monks were arguing about a flapping banner. The first said, ‘I say the banner is moving, not the wind.’ The second said, ‘I say the win is moving, not the banner.’ A third monk passed by and said, ‘The wind is not moving. The banner is not moving. Your minds are moving.”
Zen parable, via Sunbeams (Page 125)
“It is one of the most beautiful compensations of this life that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson, via Sunbeams (Page 125)
“Life shrinks or expands according to one’s courage.”
Anaïs Nin, via Sunbeams (Page 125)
“We tell ourselves that we need the right setup before we finally buckle down and get serious. Or we tell ourselves that some vacation or time alone will be good for a relationship or an ailment. This is self-deceit at its finest. It’s far better that we become pragmatic and adaptable—able to do what we need to do anywhere, anytime. The place to do your work, to live the good life, is here.”
Ryan Holiday, The Daily Stoic (Page 232)
“Marriage is not a matter of creating a quick community of spirit by tearing down and destroying all boundaries, but rather a good marriage is that in which each appoints the other guardian of his solitude… Once the realization is accepted that even between the closest human beings infinite distances continue to exist, a wonderful living side by side can grow up, if they succeed in loving the distance between them no less than one another.”
Rainer Maria Rilke, via Sunbeams (Page 123)
“One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.”
Carl Jung, via Sunbeams (Page 123)
“What am I doing at a level of consciousness where this is real?”
Thaddeus Golas, The Lazy Man’s Guide To Entertainment, via Sunbeams (Page 122)
“The distractions of the digital age hack the vulnerabilities of our psychology. They give us little microbursts of dopamine that feel good in the moment, but amount to very little in the grand scheme of things.”
Mark Manson, Blog
“I argue that the most powerful thing you can do to add healthy years is to curate your immediate social network. In general, you want friends with whom you can have a meaningful conversation. You can call them on a bad day and they will care. Your group of friends are better than any drug or anti-aging supplement, and will do more for you than just about anything.”
Dan Buettner, The Power Of Positive People
“You can usually accomplish more by giving something your full effort for a few years rather than giving it a lukewarm effort for fifty years. Pick a priority for this season of your life and do it to the best of your ability.”
James Clear, Blog
“The bad days are more important than the good days. If you write or exercise or meditate or cook when you don’t feel like it, then you maintain the habit. And if you maintain the habit, then all you need is time.”
James Clear, Blog