“He who is looking for wisdom is already wise; and he who thinks that he has found wisdom is a stupid man.”
Eastern Wisdom, via A Calendar of Wisdom (Page 166)
“Being praised essentially means that one is receiving judgment from another person as ‘good.’ And the measure of what is good or bad about that act is that person’s yardstick. If receiving praise is what one is after, one will have no choice but to adapt to that person’s yardstick and put the brakes on one’s own freedom.”
Ichiro Kishimi, The Courage To Be Disliked
“YOUTH: Have you become free from all forms of competition?
PHILOSOPHER: Of course. I do not think about gaining status or honor, and I live my life as an outsider philosopher without any connection whatsoever to worldly competition.
YOUTH: Does that mean you dropped out of competition? That you somehow accepted defeat?
PHILOSOPHER: No. I withdrew from places that are preoccupied with winning and losing. When one is trying to be oneself, competition will inevitably get in the way.”
Ichiro Kishimi, The Courage To Be Disliked
“The joy of your spirit is the indication of your strength.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson, via A Calendar of Wisdom (Page 164)
“Nothing’s worth noting that is not seen with fresh eyes. You will find in my notebook random observations from along the road, experiences and images that linger in heart and mind—a secluded house in the mountains, a lonely inn on a moor.”
Bashō, Narrow Road To The Interior (Page 67)
My Uncle Alex, who is up in Heaven now, one of the things he found objectionable about human beings was that they so rarely noticed it when times were sweet. We could be drinking lemonade in the shade of an apple tree in the summertime, and Uncle Alex would interrupt the conversation to say, “If this isn’t nice, what is?” So I hope that you will do the same for the rest of your lives. When things are going sweetly and peacefully, please pause a moment, and then say out loud, “If this isn’t nice, what is?”
Kurt Vonnegut
“If you’re in a boxing ring and the boxer punches you in the face, you don’t whine about the unfairness or the cruelty. No, that’s just part of the game. I want you to see life like this: If someone does something to you that is nasty, get control of your emotions. Don’t react. Don’t get upset. Look at it as moves on a chessboard.”
Robert Greene, The Daily Laws (Page 190)
“You have to make your own happiness, wherever you are. Your job isn’t going to make you happy, your spouse isn’t going to make you happy, the weather isn’t going to make you happy… You have to decide what you want, and you have to find that way of doing it, whether or not the outside circumstances are going to participate in your success… You have to be able to create your own happiness, period. And if you can’t, then you need to find a good shrink who can help you figure out what it’s going to take.”
Debbie Millman
“Before you try to increase your willpower, try to decrease the friction in your environment.”
James Clear, Blog
“Reading is migratory, an act of transport, from one life to another, one mind to another. Just like geographic travel, reading involves estrangement that comes with the process of dislocating from a familiar context. I gather energy from this kind of movement, this estranging and unsettling, and I welcome it precisely because it’s conducive to examination, interrogation, reordering. Travel, imaginative or physical, can sharpen perception and force a measuring of distance and difference.”
Jenny Xie, The Self Is A Fiction
“Be suspicious of anyone dangling the lure of something for nothing. Get-rich-quick schemes are scams. The lottery is really a tax on the mathematically illiterate. There are no shortcuts to power.”
Robert Greene, The Daily Laws (Page 185)
“The silence was profound. I sat, feeling my heart begin to open.”
Bashō, Narrow Road To The Interior (Page 26)
“It is a great happiness to have what you desire; but it is an even greater happiness not to want more than you already have.”
Menedemus, via A Calendar of Wisdom (Page 156)
“Who is a wise man?—He who studies all the time.
Who is strong?—He who can limit himself.
Who is rich?—He who is happy with what he has.”
The Talmud, via A Calendar of Wisdom (Page 156)
“People say that what we’re all seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think that’s what we’re really seeking. I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances with our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive.”
Joseph Campbell
“The irony is that this ‘fake it till you make it’ tactic is the exact opposite of how truly successful people live. They live with authentic vulnerability because they know that the world always connects more with your grit than your shine. They might show up for the shine, but they will stay because of your grit.”
Joshua Medcalf, Pound The Stone
“There’s a phrase out there that says, ‘Sometimes you win. Sometimes you learn.’ I can’t stand that phrase. And the reason I can’t stand that phrase is because it implies two things. It implies that you can’t learn from winning. Like you win or you learn? No, you can learn a lot from winning. Success leaves clues. What it also implies, losing is some word that no one says of, ‘Oh, I didn’t lose. I learned.’ No, you lost. Own it. You lost, you got beat today, and that’s life you’re going to lose sometimes. And instead of flowering it up and saying, “No, no, I didn’t lose. I just ran out of time. I didn’t lose.” No, you lost.”
Justin Su’a, via Farnam Street Blog
“Remember this: weak character will neutralize all of the other possible good qualities a person might possess. For instance, people of high intelligence but weak character may come up with good ideas and even do a job well, but they will crumble under pressure, or they will not take too kindly to criticism, or they will think first and foremost of their own agenda, or their arrogance and annoying qualities will cause others around them to quit, harming the general environment. There are hidden costs to working with them or hiring them.”
Robert Greene, The Daily Laws (Page 182)
“With every pilgrimage one encounters the temporality of life. To die along the road is destiny. Or so I told myself.”
Bashō, Narrow Road To The Interior (Page 14)