“Don’t allow yourself to engage in fantasies about other projects on the horizon. You want to channel this grandiose energy by absorbing yourself in your work as deeply as possible.”
Robert Greene, The Daily Laws (Page 393)
“There are many people who claim to be teachers of others who should themselves be taught first of all.”
Eastern Wisdom, via A Calendar of Wisdom (Page 326)
“Almost no difference is made by the individual who decides to do the right thing, to do an act of kindness, to insist on the truth when a falsehood is easier, to be a good parent, to care about the quality of their work. Is that a reason to be a liar, a cheat, an asshole, a bad parent, or a poor craftsman? Of course not. And imagine what the world would look like if everyone insisted it was?”
Ryan Holiday, The Daily Stoic Blog
“You cannot send away a bad thought when it appears in your mind, but you can create other thoughts which will weaken or destroy this bad thought. For example, I may imagine that your friend or neighbor has some drawback, and I may not be able to banish this thought, but when I concentrate on the thought that criticizing another person is bad because I am not perfect, and he has the same God within him as I have within me, then I cannot stop loving this person.”
Leo Tolstoy, A Calendar of Wisdom (Page 322)
“The ultimate form of preparation is not planning for a specific scenario, but a mindset that can handle uncertainty.”
James Clear, Blog
“‘Turst your feelings!’ —But feelings are nothing final or original; behind feelings there stand judgments and evaluations which we inherit in the form of… inclinations, aversions. The inspiration born of a feeling is the grandchild of a judgment—and often of a false judgment!—and in any event not a child of your own! To trust one’s feelings—means to give more obedience to one’s grandfather and grandmother and their grandparents than to the god which are in us: our reason and our experience.”
Friedrich Nietzsche, via The Daily Laws (Page 387)
“The overuse of the words toxic and narcissist not only show that there is a lack of compassion in how we deal with each other, but also that it is becoming trendy to expect each other people to not make any mistakes. There are obviously people out there who have caused harm, but we have to make sure that we find a healthy middle path where we create safe spaces for ourselves without expecting perfection from everyone we encounter.”
Yung Pueblo
“One of the major ways to open yourself to the present so that it is a fresh and vibrant experience is to be intentional about not reacting impulsively to life, but instead slowing things down so that you have more time to align yourself with the actions that feel most genuine to who you are now instead of who you were in the past.”
Yung Pueblo
“Your obstacles are not rivers or mountains or other people; your obstacle is yourself.”
Xenophon, via The Daily Laws (Page 380)
“Life is battle and struggle, and you will constantly find yourself facing bad situations, destructive relationships, dangerous engagements. How you confront these difficulties will determine your fate. If you feel lost and confused, if you lose your sense of direction, if you cannot tell the difference between friend and foe, you have only yourself to blame. Everything depends on your frame of mind and on how you look at the world. A shift of perspective can transform you from a passive and confused mercenary into a motivated and creative fighter.”
Robert Greene, The Daily Laws (Page 380)
“People tend to hide their problems and to put their best face forward. We only see and hear of their triumphs, their new relationships, their brilliant ideas that will land them a gold mine. If we move closer—if we saw the quarrels that go on behind closed doors or the horrible boss that goes with that new job—we would have less reason to feel envy. Nothing is ever so perfect as it seems, and often we would see that we are mistaken if we only looked closely enough.”
Robert Greene, The Daily Laws (Page 377)
“Only in the storm can you see the art of the real sailor; only on the battlefield can you see the bravery of a soldier. The courage of a simple person can be seen in how he copes with the difficult and dangerous situations in life.”
Daniel Achinski, via A Calendar of Wisdom (Page 314)
“…The more civilized and moral we outwardly become, the more potentially dangerous is the Shadow, which we so fiercely deny. The solution is not more repression and correctness. We can never alter human nature through enforced niceness. The pitchfork doesn’t work. Nor is the solution to seek release for our Shadow in the group, which is volatile and dangerous. Instead the answer is to see our Shadow in action and become more self-aware. It is hard to project onto others our own secret impulses or to overidealize some cause, once we are made aware of the mechanism operating within us.”
Robert Greene, The Daily Laws (Page 376)
“Do not believe that in religion you cannot trust your intellect. The force of our intellect must support the foundations of every real faith.”
William Ellery Channing, via A Calendar of Wisdom (Page 313)
“Some problems lend themselves to reexamination. A second, third or even fourth thought is productive, because our initial impulses might not reflect our best effort at understanding the nuances of the situation. But many problems simply create more thoughts, without productive output. As we confront something that is unlikely to have a simple or productive way forward, it’s easy to go into a mental tizzy imagining solutions. The art is understanding which sort of problem we’re facing. And devoting the right amount of thought (not less and definitely not more) to the situation we’re in. Spending cycles on categorizing the problem is probably more productive than wasting time on problems that don’t deserve our effort.”
Seth Godin, Blog
“Create immediately an atmosphere of freedom so that you can live and find out for yourselves what is true, so that you are able to face the world with the ability to understand it, not just conform to it. One can tell for oneself whether the water is warm or cold. In the same way, a man must convince himself about these experiences, only then are they real.”
Bruce Lee, Striking Thoughts (Page 208)
“The majority of people want to do something unusual and difficult in order to improve their lives, but they would be better to purify their wishes, and improve their inner selves.”
Leo Tolstoy, A Calendar of Wisdom (Page 312)
“You are angry. Let the feeling settle from within, and think about it. Was it triggered by something seemingly trivial or petty? That is a sure sign that something or someone else is behind it. Perhaps a more uncomfortable emotion is at the source—such as envy or paranoia. You need to look at this square in the eye. Dig below any trigger points to see where they started.”
Robert Greene, The Daily Laws (Page 374)