“The merit of a man is not in the knowledge he possesses, but in the effort he made to achieve it.”
Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, A Calendar of Wisdom (Page 41)
“It is better to know several basic rules of life than to study many unnecessary sciences. The major rules of life will stop you from evil and show you the good path in life; but the knowledge of many unnecessary sciences may lead you into the temptation of pride, and stop you from understanding the basic rules of life.”
Leo Tolstoy, A Calendar of Wisdom (Page 37)
“Most people, consciously or unconsciously, seek to avoid tedium, pain, and any form of adversity. They try to put themselves in places where they will face less criticism and minimize their chances of failure. You must choose to move in the opposite direction. You want to embrace negative experiences, limitations, and even pain as the perfect means of building up your skill levels and sharpening your sense of purpose.”
Robert Greene, The Daily Laws (Page 34)
“There are a limitless number of different sciences, but without one basic science, that is, what is the meaning of life and what is good for the people, all other forms of knowledge and art become idle and harmful entertainment.”
Leo Tolstoy, A Calendar of Wisdom (Page 30)
“A scholar knows many books; a well-educated person has knowledge and skills; an enlightened person understands the meaning and purpose of his life.”
Leo Tolstoy, A Calendar of Wisdom (Page 30)
“A thought can advance your life in the right direction only when it answers questions which were asked by your soul. A thought which was first borrowed from someone else and then accepted by your mind and memory does not really much influence your life, and sometimes leads you in the wrong direction.”
Leo Tolstoy, A Calendar of Wisdom (Page 21)
“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)
“Won’t you be walking in your predecessors’ footsteps? I surely will use the older path, but I find a shorter and smoother way, I’ll blaze a trail there. The ones who pioneered these paths aren’t our masters, but our guides. Truth stands open to everyone, it hasn’t been monopolized.”
Seneca, via The Daily Stoic (Page 251)
“People always wonder if they’re too old to do XYZ. It has been said that every 7 years, each cell in your body has been entirely replaced. Biology is my worst subject, so that could be wrong. But 7 is a magic number. It takes approximately 7 years to get 10,000 hours in to something. In any period of 7 years, I guarantee anyone you know will look back and say “Boy did I change.” It is never too late to 100% reinvent yourself. 21 to 28 still leaves most of your life. 42 to 49 still leaves nearly half of your life. Between 21 and 49 you will have lived 4 lives. That’s mastery in 4 different fields in the prime of your life. That’s important.”
Jordan Allen, Quora
“She never collected lightning bugs in bottles; you learn a lot more about something when it’s not in a jar.”
Delia Owens, Where The Crawdads Sing (Page 142)
“On every trip to Kya’s, Tate took school or library books, especially on marsh creatures and biology. Her progress was startling. She could read anything now, he said, and once you can read anything you can learn everything. It was up to her. ‘Nobody’s come close to filling their brains,’ he said. ‘We’re all like giraffes not using their necks to reach the higher leaves.'”
Delia Owens, Where The Crawdads Sing (Page 131)
“We like to say that we don’t get to choose our parents, that they were given by chance—yet we can truly choose whose children we’d like to be.”
Seneca, On The Brevity Of Life, via The Daily Stoic (Page 173)
“The best thing for being sad… is to learn something. That is the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honor trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then — to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting.”
T.H. White, The Once and Future King
“In the service of God, you can learn three things from a child, and seen from a thief. From a child you can learn: (1) always to be happy; (2) never to sit idle; and (3) to cry for everything one wants. From a thief you should learn: (1) to work at night; (2) if one cannot gain what one wants in one night to try again the next night; (3) to love one’s co-workers just as thieves love each other; (4) to be willing to risk one’s life even for a little thing; (5) not to attach too much value to things even though one has risked one’s life for them—just as a thief will resell as stolen article for a fraction of its real value; (6) to withstand all kinds of beatings and tortures but to remain what you are; and (7) to believe that your work is worthwhile and not be willing to change it.”
Dov Baer, the Mazid of Mezeritch, via Sunbeams (Page 101)
“[On learning how to play the banjo] I thought, if I stay with it, then one day I will have been playing for forty years, and anyone who sticks with something for forty years will be pretty good at it.”
Steve Martin, via So Good They Can’t Ignore You (Page 98)