“The ebb and flow of the tide is the heartbeat of the planet. When they sit in the ocean all day, they are tuning themselves in to the frequency of the earth. This alignment, to Scoty, was the highest human experience. When he spends time with anyone he loves, he wants to spend it in the ocean—surfing, fishing, boating, water-skiing, swimming, reconnectin’, and limin’.”
Will Smith, Will (Page 371)
“Give your hearts, but not into each other’s keeping.
For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.
And stand together yet not too near together:
For the pillars of the temple stand apart.”
Kahlil Gibran, via Will (Page 356)
“Nobody gives a shit about anything except how they feel. Feeling good is the most important thing to everyone, everywhere, at all times. We are choosing our words, actions, and behaviors in order to achieve a feeling that we deem positive. There’s nothing more important than feeling how we want to feel. And people determine whether or not you love them by how well they feel you honor their feelings.”
Will Smith, Will (Page 344)
“Deep down inside, I knew that my dreams would be made or broken by the people I chose to surround myself with. Confucius had it right: It’s nearly impossible for the quality of your life to be higher than the quality of your friends. And by the grace of God, there has never been a single moment in my life when I have looked to my left or to my right and not seen an extraordinary friend, someone who believed in me and was down for whatever.”
Will Smith, Will (Page 96)
“Say to yourself first thing in the morning: today I shall meet people who are meddling, ungrateful, aggressive, treacherous, malicious, unsocial. All this has afflicted them through their ignorance of true good and evil. But I have seen that the nature of good is what is right, and the nature of evil what is wrong; and I have reflected that the nature of the offender himself is akin to my own—not a kinship of blood or seed, but a sharing in the same mind, the same fragment of divinity. Therefore I cannot be harmed by any of them, as none will infect me with their wrong. Nor can I be angry with my kinsman or hate him. We were born for cooperation, like feet, like hands, like eyelids, like the rows of upper and lower teeth. So to work in opposition to one another is against nature: and anger or rejection is opposition.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations (Page 10)
“Who you choose to spend time with likely has a greater long-term impact on your health, wealth, and happiness than almost any other decision you make. Yet, most people will put more conscious thought into the color of their smartphone case.”
Mark Manson, The Breakthrough