“Most people don’t have the patience to absorb their minds in the fine points and minutiae that are intrinsically part of their work. They are in a hurry to create effects and make a splash; they think in large brush strokes. Their work inevitably reveals their lack of attention to detail—it doesn’t connect deeply with the public, and it feels flimsy. You must see whatever you produce as something that has a life and presence of its own.”
Robert Greene, The Daily Laws (Page 99)
“The mind and the body are so intertwined that it is impossible to separate out their effects on us. Feeling energized influences our mood, which influences our work in very direct ways. And feeling confused or disorganized in our work can have a terrible effect on us physically as well.”
Robert Greene, The Daily Laws (Page 97)
“When a machine malfunctions, you do not take it personally or grow despondent. It is in fact a blessing in disguise. Such malfunctions generally show you inherent flaws and means of improvement. You simply keep tinkering until you get it right.”
Robert Greene, The Daily Laws (Page 96)
“Never postpone a good deed which you can do now, because death does not choose whether you have or haven’t done the things you should have done. Death waits for nobody and nothing. It has neither enemies, nor friends.”
Indian Wisdom, A Calendar of Wisdom (Page 84)
“I always forget how important the empty days are, how important it may be sometimes not to expect to produce anything, even a few lines in a journal. A day when one has not pushed oneself to the limit seems a damaged, damaging day, a sinful day. Not so! The most valuable thing one can do for the psyche, occasionally, is to let it rest, wander, live in the changing light of a room.”
May Sarton, Journal of a Solitude
“I believe in anger. Anger’s like fire, it can burn out all the dross and leave some positive things. But what I don’t believe in is bitterness. Forgiveness is imperative because you don’t want to carry that weight around, who needs to? And it will throw you down. It doesn’t help you to live life. I don’t make myself vulnerable if I can help it.”
Maya Angelou
“Your entire life happens inside your body. It’s the one home you will always occupy and can never sell. But you can renovate it. If you can only pick one habit to build, exercise might be the one. Everything is downstream from how your body is functioning.”
James Clear, Blog
“Knowledge is always progressing. Don’t let your ego fool you. You are always knowledge’s inferior.”
Robert Greene, The Daily Laws (Page 94)
“All living creatures fear pain and death. Try to understand yourself in every living creature: do not torture and do not kill. Stop suffering and dearth. All living creatures want what you want; all living creatures praise their lives.”
Dhammapada, A Calendar of Wisdom (Page 82)
“The greatest impediment to creativity is your impatience, the almost inevitable desire to hurry up the process, express something, and make a splash.”
Robert Greene, The Daily Laws (Page 93)
“Youth is happy because it has the capacity to see beauty. Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.”
Franz Kafka, The Daily Laws (Page 92)
“Physical work, physical exercise for your body, is a necessary condition of life. A man can force others to do things for him, but he cannot free himself from the necessity of his own physical work. And if a man does not work at necessary and good things, then he will work at unnecessary and stupid things.”
Leo Tolstoy, A Calendar of Wisdom (Page 79)
“We all possess an inborn creative force that wants to become active. This is the gift of our Original Mind, which reveals such potential. The human mind is naturally creative, constantly looking to make associations and connections between things and ideas. It wants to explore, to discover new aspects of the world, and to invent. To express this creative force is our greatest desire, and the stifling of it the source of our misery.”
Robert Greene, The Daily Laws (Page 90)
“He who always listens to what other people say about him will never find inner peace.”
Leo Tolstoy, A Calendar of Wisdom (Page 77)
“What reward should a good deed bring you? Only the joy you receive by performing it. And any other reward lessens the feeling of this joy.”
Leo Tolstoy, A Calendar of Wisdom (Page 75)
“When I’m asked how I define mastery or what phrase guides me in my own life or in writing a book, I say, ‘It’s getting to the inside.’ I’m always trying to move to the inside of things. On the outside, things look a certain way—kind of dead, because you’re just seeing the appearances. When you get to the inside, you see the heart beating, you understand it, you get the reality.”
Robert Greene, The Daily Laws (Page 86)
“Learning never exhausts the mind.”
Leonardo Da Vinci, The Daily Laws (Page 85)
“Anything that is alive is in a continual state of change and movement. The moment that you rest, thinking that you have attained the level you desire, a part of your mind enters a phase of decay. You lose your hard-earned creativity and others begin to sense it. This is a power and intelligence that much be continually renewed or it will die.”
Robert Greene, The Daily Laws (Page 81)
“Life is not given to us that we might live idly without work. No, our life is a struggle and a journey. Good should struggle with evil; truth should struggle with falsehood; freedom should struggle with slavery; love should struggle with hatred. Life is movement, a walk along the way of life to the fulfillment of those ideas which illuminate us, both in our intellect and in our hearts, with divine light.”
Giuseppe Mazzini, A Calendar of Wisdom (Page 72)
“A charity is only then a real charity when it involves sacrifice.”
Leo Tolstoy, A Calendar of Wisdom (Page 70)