“If your plan, your idea or your art doesn’t involve any significant hurdles in moving forward, it’s probably not worth that much. If it were easy, everyone would do it. The tactic is to seek a path where you see and understand the significant hurdles that kept others away. And then dance with them. They’re not a problem, they’re a feature.”
Seth Godin, Blog
“Commitment makes good things better and bad things worse. The more ‘all-in’ you are on a good relationship, the better it becomes. The more you commit to a toxic relationship, the deeper you get trapped. The more you invest yourself in fulfilling work, the more your effort fuels you. The harder you work on a bad project or in an unsatisfying role, the more of a grind it becomes.”
James Clear, Blog
“If you’re always right, you’re not learning. If you’re never failing, you’re not reaching. The objective is to be right. The objective is to succeed. But if you’re always winning, you’re undershooting your potential.”
James Clear, Blog
“Socrates thought that stupidity was incompatible with wisdom, but he never said that ignorance was stupidity.”
Xenophon, via A Calendar of Wisdom (Page 203)
“People are drawn to those who expect a lot out of life, whereas they tend to disrespect those who are fearful and undemanding.”
Robert Greene, The Daily Laws (Page 242)
“If you are in a difficult situation, a low mood, if you are afraid of other people and of yourself, if you are tormented, then tell yourself: ‘I will love everyone whom I meet in this life.’ Try to follow this rule; and you will see that everything will find its way, and everything will seem simple, and you will no longer have doubts or fears.”
Leo Tolstoy, A Calendar of Wisdom (Page 202)
“Pay bad people with your goodness; fight their hatred with your kindness. Even if you do not achieve victory over other people, you will conquer yourself.”
Henri Amiel, A Calendar of Wisdom (Page 202)
“To understand and live now, there must be dying to everything of yesterday. Die continually to every newly gained experience—be in a state of choiceless awareness of WHAT IS.”
Bruce Lee, Striking Thoughts (Page 14)
“You can never invite the wind, but you must leave the window open.”
Bruce Lee, Striking Thoughts (Page 13)
“We are always in a process of becoming and NOTHING is fixed. Have no rigid system in you, and you’ll be flexible to change with the ever changing. OPEN yourself and flow, my friend. Flow in the TOTAL OPENNESS OF THE LIVING MOMENT. If nothing within you stays rigid, outward things will disclose themselves. Moving, be like water. Still, be like a mirror. Respond like an echo.”
Bruce Lee, Striking Thoughts (Page 13)
“The root is the fulcrum on which will rest the expression of your soul; the root is the ‘starting point’ of all natural manifestation. If the root is right so will be all its manifestation. It cannot be, when the root is neglected, that what should spring from it will be well-ordered.”
Bruce Lee, Striking Thoughts (Page 12)
“What we are after is the root and not the branches. The root is the real knowledge; the branches are surface knowledge. Real knowledge breeds ‘body feel’ and personal expression; surface knowledge breeds mechanical conditioning and imposing limitation and squelches creativity.”
Bruce Lee, Striking Thoughts (Page 11)
“A simple life is one of plainness, in which profit is discarded, cleverness abandoned, selfishness eliminated, and desires reduced. It is the life of perfection which seems to be incomplete, and of fullness which seems to be empty. It is the life which is as bright as light, but does not dazzle. In short, it is a life of harmony, unity, contentment, tranquillity, constancy enlightenment, peace, and long life.”
Bruce Lee, Striking Thoughts (Page 6)
“To live is to express, and to express you have to create. Creation is never merely repetition. To live is to express oneself freely in creation.”
Bruce Lee, Striking Thoughts (Page 6)
“If other people having it worse than you means you can’t be sad, then other people having it better than you would mean you can’t be happy. Feel what you feel.”
Ideopunk, LessWrong
“If somebody is undergoing group criticism, the tribal part in you will want to join in the fun of righteously destroying somebody. Resist this, you’ll only add ugliness to the world. And anyway, they’ve already learned the lesson they’re going to learn and it probably isn’t the lesson you want.”
Ideopunk, LessWrong
“Procrastination comes naturally, so apply it to bad things. ‘I want to hurt myself right now. I’ll do it in an hour.’ ‘I want a smoke now, so in half an hour I’ll go have a smoke.’ Then repeat. Much like our good plans fall apart while we delay them, so can our bad plans.”
Ideopunk, LessWrong
“To start defining your problems, say (out loud) ‘everything in my life is completely fine.’ Notice what objections arise.”
Ideopunk, LessWrong
“Defining yourself by your suffering is an effective way to keep suffering forever (ex. incels, trauma).”
Ideopunk, LessWrong
“You have a plan. A time-traveller from 2030 appears and tells you your plan failed. Which part of your plan do you think is the one that fails? Fix that part.”
Ideopunk, LessWrong