“Real love refers not just to love for a particular person but to the spiritual state of loving everyone.”
Leo Tolstoy, A Calendar of Wisdom (Page 290)
“The eight requirements that will eliminate suffering by correting false values and giving true knowledge of life’s meaning have been summed up as follows: First, you must see clearly what is wrong. Next, decide to be cured. You must act. Speak so as to aim at being cured. Your livelihood must not conflict with your therapy. The therapy must go forward at the ‘staying speed;’ the critical velocity that can be sustained. You must think and feel about it incessantly. Learn how to contemplate with the deep mind.”
Bruce Lee, Striking Thoughts (Page 162)
“No one can harm you. ‘If someone succeeds in provoking you,’ Epictetus said, ‘realize that your mind is complicit in the provocation.’ He meant that whatever other people do and say is on them. Whatever your reaction is to what other people do and say—that’s on you. No one can make you angry, only you have that power. Someone can certainly say something offensive or stupid or mean, but no one can make you upset—that’s a choice.”
Ryan Holiday
“It’s my contention that the people you deal with are a lot more interesting and complicated and weird than you imagine. You think that you have to travel to some foreign region like Bali or see some interesting movie to find people interesting. No, that salesperson at Rite Aid or whomever—they actually have a really deep, rich inner life. They are fascinating. You’re just not realizing it.”
Robert Greene, The Daily Laws (Page 345)
“In the important questions of life, we are always alone. Our deepest inner thoughts cannot be understood by others. The best part of the drama that goes on deep in our soul is a monologue, or, better to say, a very sincere conversation between God, our conscience, and ourself.”
Henri Amiel, via A Calendar of Wisdom (Page 286)
“It’s hard to be a person in this world. Maybe not as much for you, but it definitely is for some people. So you must be patient. You must be understanding. You must not assume the worst. You must do what you can to help…and put up with the people that you can’t. Things are hard enough, you don’t need to make it harder…for them or for yourself.”
Ryan Holiday, The Daily Stoic Blog
“Keep ignoring feedback and life will keep teaching you the same lesson.”
James Clear, Blog
“Is there anything more absurd than a person having a right to kill me because we live on two opposite banks of the river, and our kings quarrel with each other?”
Blaise Pascal, via A Calendar of Wisdom (Page 285)
“So much of power is not what you do but what you do not do—the rash and foolish actions that you refrain from before they get you into trouble. Plan in detail before you act—do not let vague plans lead you into trouble. Unhappy endings are much more common that happy ones—do not be swayed by the happy ending in your mind.”
Robert Greene, The Daily Laws (Page 337)
“Most people act, not according to their meditations, and not according to their feelings, but as if hypnotized, based on some senseless repetition of patterns.”
Leo Tolstoy, A Calendar of Wisdom (Page 284)
“The need for space is psychological as well as physical: you must have an unfettered mind to create anything worthwhile.”
Robert Greene, The Daily Laws (Page 336)
“Never take it for granted that your past successes will continue in the future. Actually, your past successes are your biggest obstacle: every battle, every war, is different, and you cannot assume that what worked before will work today.”
Robert Greene, The Daily Laws (Page 335)
“Whatever age you are today, your future self would love to be it. Most people do not consider 65 to be a young age… but when you’re 75, you’d love to rewind to 65 and regain those years. Few people would describe 35 as your youth, but in your mid-50s your mid-30s will seem like the “young you.” Today is a great opportunity, no matter your age. Looking back in a few years, today will seem like the time when you were young and full of potential or the moment when you could have started early or the turning point when you made a choice that benefited your future. The moment in front of you right now is a good one. Make the most of it.”
James Clear, Blog
“If it were not so blindly accepted as a part of our customs and traditions, how could any sensitive person accept the thought that in order to feed ourselves we should kill such a huge number of animals, in spite of the fact that our earth gives us so many different treasures from plants?”
Leo Tolstoy, A Calendar of Wisdom (Page 280)
“What nature of struggle for existence or kind of madness forces you to shed blood with your hands in order to eat animals? Why do this, if you have all the comforts of life?”
Plutarch, A Calendar of Wisdom (Page 280)
“The true artist has no public; he works for the sheer joy of it, with an element of playfulness, of casualness. Art reaches its greatest peak when devoid of self-consciousness. Freedom discovers man the moment he loses concern over what impression he is making or about to make.”
Bruce Lee, Striking Thoughts (Page 140)
“If you do anything at the last minute that takes more than a minute, you’re not organizing your project properly. The last minute is not a buffer zone, nor is it the moment to double-check your work. The last minute is simply sixty seconds to enjoy and to remind yourself that you successfully planned ahead.”
Seth Godin
“[Hemingway] would always end a writing session only when he knew what came next in the story. Instead of exhausting every last idea and bit of energy, he would stop when the next plot point became clear. This meant that the next time he sat down to work on his story, he knew exactly where to start. He built himself a bridge to the next day, using today’s energy and momentum to fuel tomorrow’s writing.”
Tiago Forte
“The problem isn’t that you’re too busy. You are too busy, but that’s not the problem. If you view being busy as the problem, there is no solution. You will always be too busy, and that will never change. As Andy Grove once noted: ‘A manager’s work is never done. There is always more to be done, more that should be done, always more than can be done.’ The problem is that you’re acting like a firefighter instead of a fire marshal.”
Ed Batista
“I often hear phrases like, ‘If you don’t take action on what you learn, it’s pointless.‘ I think it’s bullshit. From late 2016 to 2020, I binged around 130 self-development books and hours of Tim Ferriss Show podcast episodes. I took direct action, maybe on 0.5% of the advice I heard. But the real change happened with my beliefs. Hearing stories, struggles, and behind-the-scenes from various people who did dope shit stretched my thinking of what’s possible.”
Janis Ozolins