“There are too many mediocre books which exist just to entertain your mind. Therefore, read only those books which are accepted without doubt as good.”
Lucius Annaeus Seneca, via A Calendar of Wisdom (Page 13)
“What can be more precious than to communicate every day with the wisest men of the world?”
Leo Tolstoy, A Calendar of Wisdom (Page 7)
“Forget about likes and dislikes. They are of no consequence. Just do what must be done. This may not be happiness, but it is greatness.”
George Bernard Shaw, via Sunbeams (Page 159)
“If you want to write the truth, you must write about yourself. I am the only real truth I know.”
Jean Rhys, via Sunbeams (Page 159)
“There is a palace that opens only to tears.”
Zohar, via Sunbeams (Page 159)
“There are two kinds of faithfulness in love: one is based on forever finding new things to love in the loved one; the other is based on our pride in being faithful.”
François La Rochefoucauld, via Sunbeams (Page 158)
“The majority of people are subjective toward themselves and objective toward all others, terribly objective sometimes, but the real task is, in fact, to be objective toward oneself and subjective toward all others.”
Sören Kierkegaard, via Sunbeams (Page 157)
“There is one spectacle grander than the sea,
That is the sky;
There is one spectacle grander than the sky,
That is the interior of the soul.”
Victor Hugo, via Sunbeams (Page 156)
“If there is anything that we wish to change in the child, we should first examine it and see whether it is not something that could better be changed in ourselves.”
Carl Jung, via Sunbeams (Page 156)
“Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live; it is asking others to live as one wishes to live.”
Oscar Wilde, via Sunbeams (Page 156)
“I think of the trees and how simply they let go, let fall the riches of a season, how without grief (it seems) they can let go and go deep into their roots for renewal and sleep… Imitate the trees. Learn to lose in order to recover, and remember that nothing stays the same for long, not even pain, psychic pain. Sit it out. Let it all pass. Let it go.”
May Sarton
“Slowing down enables you to act in a high quality way. Kind rather than curt. Polished rather than sloppy. It’s hard to be thoughtful when you’re in a rush.”
James Clear, Blog
“If you’re feeling creative, do the errands tomorrow. If you’re fit and healthy, take a day to go surfing. When inspiration strikes, write it down. The calendar belongs to everyone else. Their schedule isn’t your schedule unless it helps you get where you’re going.”
Seth Godin, Blog
“Stop wandering about! You aren’t likely to read your own notebooks, or ancient histories, or the anthologies you’ve collected to enjoy in your old age. Get busy with life’s purpose, toss aside empty hopes, get active in your own rescue—if you care for yourself at all—and do it while you can.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, The Daily Stoic (Page 387)
“It is not that you must be free from fear. The moment you try to free yourself from fear, you create a resistance against fear. Resistance, in any form, does not end fear. What is needed, rather than running away or controlling or suppressing or any other resistance, is understanding fear; that means, watch it, learn about it, come directly into contact with it. We are to learn about fear, not how to escape from it, not how to resist it through courage and so on.”
J. Krishnamurti, via Sunbeams (Page 155)
“Your duty is to be; and not to be this or that.”
Ramana Maharshi, via Sunbeams (Page 155)
“We tend to think of the rational as a higher order, but it is the emotional that marks our lives. One often learns more from ten days of agony than from ten years of contentment.”
Merle Shain, via Sunbeams (Page 155)