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The future is already here—it’s just not evenly distributed.

William Gibson

Future

Dreams are fun when they are distant. The imagination loves to play with possibilities when there is no risk of failure. But when you find yourself on the verge of action, you pause. You can feel the uncertainty of what lies ahead. Thoughts swirl. Maybe this isn't the right time? Failure is possible now. In that moment—in that short pause that arises when you stand face to face with your dream—is the entirety of life. What you do in that pause is the crucible that forges you. It is the dividing line between being the type of person who thinks about it or the type of person who goes for it. When I really think about it, I want that moment to be my legacy. Not that I won or lost. Not that I looked good or looked like a fool. But that when I had something I really wanted to do, I went for it.

James Clear

Dreams

Procrastination

Action

Things turn out best for the people who make the best of the way things turn out.

John Wooden

After you have exhausted what there is in business, politics, conviviality, love, and so on—have found that none of these finally satisfy, or permanently wear—what remains? Nature remains; to bring out from their torpid recesses, the affinities of a man or woman with the open air, the trees, fields, the changes of seasons—the sun by day and the stars of heaven by night.

Walt Whitman

Nature

I prefer to be true to myself, even at the hazard of incurring the ridicule of others, rather than to be false, and to incur my own abhorrence.

Fredrick Douglass

Authenticity

In life, we cannot always control the first arrow. However, the second arrow is our reaction to the first. The second arrow is optional.

Buddha

Let go or be dragged.

Zen Proverb

Intelligence is the capacity to perceive the essential, the what is; and to awaken this capacity, in oneself and in others, is education.

Jiddu Krishnamurti

Education

Intelligence

The people I distrust most are those who want to improve our lives but have only one course of action in mind.

Frank Herbert

Trust

Distrust

Guru

So live your life that the fear of death can never enter your heart. Trouble no one about their religion; respect others in their views, and demand that they respect yours. Love your life, perfect your life, beautify all things in your life. Seek to make your life long and its purpose in the service of your people. Prepare a noble death song for the day when you go over the great divide. Always give a word or a sign of salute when meeting or passing a friend, even a stranger, when in a lonely place. Show respect to all people and grovel to none. When you arise in the morning give thanks for the food and for the joy of living. If you see no reason for giving thanks, the fault lies only in yourself. Abuse no one and no thing, for abuse turns the wise ones to fools and robs the spirit of its vision. When it comes your time to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with the fear of death, so that when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way. Sing your death song and die like a hero going home.

Tecumseh

If a male enjoys dressing up and behaving like a woman, he was born that way. If a female enjoys dressing up and behaving like a woman, she was brainwashed by society.

Rob Henderson

Sexuality

Society

Who can say if the thoughts you have in your mind as you read these words are the same thoughts I had in my mind as I typed them? We are different, you and I, and the qualia of our consciousnesses are as divergent as two stars at the ends of the universe. And yet, whatever has been lost in translation in the long journey of my thoughts through the maze of civilization to your mind, I think you do understand me, and you think you do understand me. Our minds managed to touch, if but briefly and imperfectly. Does the thought not make the universe seem just a bit kinder, a bit brighter, a bit warmer and more human? We live for such miracles.

Ken Liu

Reading

Writing

Miracles

Health lies in action, and so it graces youth. To be busy is the secret of grace, and half the secret of content. Let us ask the gods not for possessions, but for things to do; happiness is in making things rather than in consuming them.

Will Durant

Action

Happiness

I have learned that whenever I think "I don't have enough time to do that" what I usually mean is "I don't have enough energy" or "I am not actually interested in doing this." What I need to do a better job of is not managing my time, but rather caring for myself and identifying my true interests. When I am well rested and working on something I am genuinely excited about, finding time is rarely a problem.

James Clear

Priorities

Time

Values

It is not enough that we do our best; sometimes we must do what is required."

Winston Churchill

Duty

No one should abandon duties because he sees defects in them. Every action, every activity, is surrounded by defects as a fire is surrounded by smoke.

Krishna

Duty

Defects

From The Bhagavad Gita

A mind all logic is like a knife all blade. It makes the hand bleed that uses it.

⁠

Rabindranath Tagore

⁠

Logic

Rationality

Don’t worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you’ll have to ram them down people’s throats.

Howard Aiken

Ideas

Theft

Stealing

Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.

Neil Gaiman

From Coraline

The most difficult thing is the decision to act. The rest is merely tenacity. The fears are paper tigers. You can do anything you decide to do. You can act to change and control your life; and the procedure, the process, is its own reward.

Amelia Earhart

Action

Growth

If you pick someone, you're really safe. If they pick you, you have to be careful.

Pen Jillette

Man, whose teacher is nature, should not be a piece of wax on which an elevated image of some professor is to be carved.

GEORGE LICHTENBERG

Self 1.0 vs 2.0

Don’t be the person who says yes with their mouth but no with their actions. - Ryan Holiday

Don't slay dragons that aren't in your way. - Jordan Peterson

Every prophet has to come from civilization, but every prophet has to go into the wilderness. He must have a strong impression of a complex society and all that it has to give, and then he must serve periods of isolation and meditation. This is the process by which psychic dynamite is made. - Winston Churchill

A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention. - Herbert Simon

The secret of being miserable is to have the leisure to bother about whether you are happy or not. - George Bernard Shaw

Spit on your hands and get busy. Your blood will start circulating; your mind will start ticking—and pretty soon this whole positive upsurge of life in your body will drive worry from your mind. Get busy. Keep busy. It’s the cheapest kind of medicine there is on this earth—and one of the best. - Dale Carnegie

You will never change your life until you change something you do daily. - John Maxwell

Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you. - Anne Lamott

Select your purpose … selfless, without any thought of personal pleasure or personal profit, and then use selfless means to attain your goal. - Gandhi

If you are to have a great kingdom,” he said, “rule over yourself! - Publius Syrus

The essence of the independent mind lies not in what it thinks, but in how it thinks. - Christopher Hitchens

You want to deliver to the world what you would buy if you were on the other end. - Shane Parrish, Farnham Street

To get what you want, deserve what you want. Trust, success, and admiration are earned. - Charlie Munger

The biggest problem we run into is going, ‘This is who I am, this is what I’m like, this is how I function’ while failing to notice that you don’t do that anymore. - Neil Gaiman

We already know what we need to do. - United States Navy Seal and Rhodes Scholar Eric Greitens

Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only few find it. - Matthew 7:13-14

Dress shabbily and they remember the dress; dress impeccably and they remember the woman. - Coco Chanel

You cannot overestimate the unimportance of practically everything. - John Maxwell

Without courage we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can't be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest. - Maya Angelou

There are a whole lot of things in this world of ours you haven't even started wondering about yet. - Roald Dahl

The illiterates of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn. - Alvin Toffler

A man is about as big as the things that make him angry. - Winston Churchill

Between two evils, I generally like to pick the one I never tried before. - Mae West

It is easier to act yourself into a new way of thinking, than it is to think yourself into a new way of acting. - Millard Fuller

The best things in life are free. The second best things are very, very expensive. - Coco Chanel

All cruelty springs from weakness. - Seneca

The truth knocks on the door and you say, ‘Go away, I'm looking for the truth,’ and so it goes away. Puzzling. - Robert M. Pirsig

The busy man is least busy with living. - Seneca

The whole trick is keeping the truth up front in daily consciousness. - David Foster Wallace

Tell me what you need and I'll tell you how to live without it. - Altai mountain local skier from Warren Miller movie

The wound is the place where light enters you. - Rumi

For the mediocre there is no hope. Mediocrity is a sin.” –“The Tramp,” War of the Classes - Jack London

No man can serve two masters. Your life is shaped by the end you live for. You are made in the image of what you desire. - Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude

Life is not even close to being as logically consistent as our worries; it has many more unexpected ideas and many more facts than we do. - Rilke

It’s unfortunate that this happened. No. It’s fortunate that this has happened and I’ve remained unharmed. - Marcus Aurelius

Reminds me of "Thank you" and Jocko's, "Good."

The only aspect of your life that fortune does not have control over is your behavior. - Nassim Taleb

The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it. - Henry David Thoreau

Learning to let go should be learned before learning to get. Life should be touched, not strangled. You’ve got to relax, let it happen at times, and at others move forward with it. - Ray Bradbury

Good journey, not goodbye. - (Don't know where this came from, saw it on a headstone in a movie years ago and always stuck with me).

We have two lives, and the second begins when we realize we only have one. - Confucius

As long as you live, keep learning how to live. - Seneca

Your visions will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakens. - C.G. Jung

Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep. - Scott Adams

Be who you needed when you were younger. - T.S. Elliot

Astrophysicist Janna Levin’s magnificent Moth story about the Möbius life-paths that lead us back to ourselves, Shapiro adds: There is no other life than this. You would not have stumbled into the vastly imperfect, beautiful, impossible present.

"philosopher Amelie Rorty concluded in her taxonomy of the seven layers of identity in literature and life. “Time is the substance I am made of,” wrote Borges decades earlier in refuting the most perplexing dimension of existence. “Time is a river which sweeps me along, but I am the river; it is a tiger which destroys me, but I am the tiger; it is a fire which consumes me, but I am the fire.”"

There will come a time when you believe everything is finished. That will be the beginning. - Louis L’Amour

We don’t see things as they are; we see them as we are. - Anais Nin

All happiness depends on a leisurely breakfast. - John Gunther

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. - Henry David Thoreau

Success generally comes after you start. If you think success comes before you start, the world probably looks confusing to you. - Scott Adams

The pattern I observe that says complexity always hides the future, as opposed to predicting it. - Scott Adams

Hard choices, easy life. Easy choices, hard life. – Jerzy Gregorek

Well done is better than well said. - Benjamin Franklin

The source of wisdom is whatever is going to happen to us today. - Pema Chödrön

No-one knows what your life or life itself should be because it is in the process of being created. Life moves according to a growing consciousness of life and is completely unpredictable. - Agnes Martin

To be prepared against surprise is to be trained. To be prepared for surprise is to be educated. - James Carse, Finite and Infinite Games

Sometimes it is not enough to do our best; we must do what is required. - Winston Churchill

It had long since come to my attention that people of accomplishment rarely sat back and let things happen to them. They went out and happened to things. - Leonardo da Vinci

So, if you cannot understand that there is something in man which responds to the challenge of this mountain and goes out to meet it, that the struggle is the struggle of life itself upward and forever upward, then you won’t see why we go. What we get from this adventure is just sheer joy. And joy is, after all, the end of life. - George Mallory

It is our responsibilities, not ourselves, that we should take seriously. -Peter Ustinov

The price of discipline is always less than the pain of regret. - Nido Qubein

A tunnel is a cave with a light at the end. Just because it's dark it doesn't mean were underground. It often means that no one has bothered to turn on the lights. - Seth Godin, 9/10/16 blog post

Some feel we have no control over what happens to us. If this is your belief, then it’s probably real for you. - Leo Babauta

Better keep yourself clean and bright. You are the window through which you must see the world. - George Bernard Shaw

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man. – George Bernard Shaw

There is no way to happiness -- happiness is the way. - Thich Nhat Hanh.

Perfection is not when there is no more to add, but no more to take away. – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

It is impossible to begin to learn that which one thinks one already knows. - Epictetus

We don't rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training. - Archilochus

Of all the paths you take in life, make sure a few of them are dirt. - John Muir

When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe. - John Muir

Over-sentimentality, over-softness, in fact washiness and mushiness are the great dangers of this age and of this people. Unless we keep the barbarian virtues, gaining the civilized ones will be of little avail. - Theodore Roosevelt

To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you. - Lewis B. Smedes

As to methods there may be a million and then some, but principles are few. The man who grasps principles can successfully select his own methods. The man who tries methods, ignoring principles, is sure to have trouble. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Time has no practical value without attention. - Tim Ferriss

How much time are you spending deciding what to spend time on? - Seth Godin

100

A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone. - Henry David Thoreau

101

Morality is simply the attitude we adopt towards people we personally dislike. - Oscar Wilde

102

A wise man can learn more from a foolish question than a fool can learn from a wise answer. - Bruce Lee

103

Adapt what is useful, reject what is useless, and add what is specifically your own - Bruce Lee

104

To me, ‘busy’ implies that the person is out of control of their life. - Derek Sivers

105

Action speaks louder than words but not nearly as often. - Mark Twain

106

Eat a live frog first thing in the morning, and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day. - Mark Twain

107

The worst loneliness is to not be comfortable with yourself. - Mark Twain

108

The preparation for the ritual is the ritual. - Kate Green

109

The measure of success is not how much time you spend doing what you love, it's how little time you spend doing what you hate. - Casey Neistat

110

Nothing can be loved or hated unless it is first understood. - Leonardo DaVinci

111

Wealth is liberty - liberty to seek recreation, liberty to enjoy life, liberty to improve the mind: it is disposable time and nothing more. - Karl Marx

112

Train your expectation to appreciation. - Tony Robbins

113

How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. - Annie Dillard

114

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit. -Aristotle

115

Shallow men believe in luck or in circumstance. Strong men believe in cause and effect. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

116

The greatest dignity to be found in death is the dignity of the life that preceded it. - Sherwin B. Nuland

117

It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. - Adam Smith

118

Be clear about your intentions, thoughtful in your choices, simple in your desires and content in your days... Life will present us with enough challenges. We don’t need to set ourselves up for more by fueling expectations or living rigidly. - Mark Sisson on Stoic philosophy

119

If you find yourself criticizing other people, you’re probably doing it out of resistance. When we see others beginning to live their authentic selves, it drives us crazy if we have not lived out our own. – The Art of War

120

It is remarkable how much long-term advantage people like us have gotten by trying to be consistently not stupid, instead of trying to be very intelligent. - Charlie Munger, vice-chairman of Berkshire Hathaway

121

That’s the way the Iron talks to you. It tells you that the material you work with is that which you will come to resemble. That which you work against will always work against you. - Henry Rollins

122

However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results. - Winston Churchill

123

Normality is a paved road: it's comfortable to walk, but no flowers grow on it. - Vincent Van Gogh.

124

Time is a created thing. To say 'I don't have time,' is like saying, 'I don't want to.' - Lao Tzu

125

If you have an important point to make, don't try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time - a tremendous whack. - Winston Churchill

126

Make the man who does wrong aware that the decent man is not only his superior in decency, but his superior in strength. - Teddy Rosevelt

127

Live as if you were living already for the second time and as if you had acted the first time as wrongly as you are about to act now! - Viktor Frankl

128

People forget the brain lives inside the body. If the body's unhealthy, the brain's unhealthy. - Joe De Sena

129

To be happy at home is the ultimate result of all ambition. -Samuel Johnson

130

Do fewer things. Do them better. Know why you're doing them. - Call Newport

131

Either you run the day or the the day runs you. - Jim Rohn

132

Your level of success will seldom exceed your level of personal development. - Jim Rohn

133

If you don't have a plan to interrupt your interruptions your plans will always be interrupted. Period. - Peter Voogd.

134

Behind every feeling is nothing, but behind every principle and value is a promise. - Eric Thomas

135

Where you are is a result of who you were, but where you go depends entirely on who you choose to be. - Hal Elrod (check source)

136

When I double my rate of failure I double my rate of success. - James Swanwick, former ESPN anchor

137

If you can’t do the little things right, you will never do the big things right. -Naval Admiral William H. McRaven. McRaven is the commander of U.S. Special Operations, navy SEAL

138

If you want to accomplish uncommon things, you need to live everyday of your life uncommonly. If you spend your day like everyone else, you will end up like everyone else. -Unknown

139

The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off. - Gloria Steiner

140

The production of too many useful things results in too many useless people. - Karl Marx

141

Ability is what you are capable of, motivation determines what you do, but attitude determines how well you do it. - Lou Holtz

142

The truth is revealed by removing things which stand in its light, an art, not unlike sculpture, in which the artist creates, not by building, but by hacking away. - Alan Watts

143

Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless — like water. Now you put water in a cup, it becomes the cup; You put water into a bottle it becomes the bottle; You put it in a teapot it becomes the teapot. Now water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend. - Bruce Lee

144

Failure does not deserve to be addressed with recrimination or pity. Rather, failure must be honored for the insight it provides. Failure is the grist for learning; it is our teacher. Without taking risk, we can’t fail, and so we don’t learn or grow toward elite performance and top-shelf solutions. Navigate. – Mark Divine

145

For every inside there is an outside, and for every outside there is an inside; though they are different, they go together. - Alan Watts

146

More people would learn from their mistakes if they weren't so busy denying them. - Harold J. Smith

147

What a man hasn't been reasoned into believing, he cannot be reasoned out of believing.

148

Success hinges less on getting everything right than on how you handle getting things wrong. - Michelle Russel

149

People think of education as something they can finish. - Isaac Asimov

150

Much of education is oriented toward making a living rather than making a LIFE. - Dr. Walsh

151

Don’t ever solve the same the same problem three times in a row. If you have the same question or problem three times in a row, systematize it. - Joel Runyun

152

You can only lose what you cling to. -Buddha

153

Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better. - Maya Angelou

154

Never have your wallet with you onstage. It's bad luck. You shouldn't play the piano with money in your pocket. Play like you need the money. - Tom Waits

155

Wherever a process of life communicates an eagerness to him who lives it, there the life becomes genuinely significant. Sometimes the eagerness is more knit up with the motor activities, sometimes with the perceptions, sometimes with the imagination, sometimes with reflective thought. But, wherever it is found, there is the zest, the tingle, the excitement of reality; and there is ‘importance’ in the only real and positive sense in which importance ever anywhere can be. -William James

156

Somebody may beat me, but they are going to have to bleed to do it. —Steve Prefontaine

157

Do you want to know who you are? Don't ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you. - Thomas Jefferson

158

A proud man is always looking down on things and people; and, of course, as long as you’re looking down, you can’t see the things above you. – C.S. Lewis

159

The cure for a fallacious argument is a better argument, not the suppression of ideas. - Carl Sagan

160

The man is happiest who lives from day to day and asks no more, garnering the simple goodness of life. - Euripides

161

Humans are powerful and beautiful...but they have to see it first, and see the power and beauty both within themselves and outside. Eyesight and vision are not the same. Eyesight perceives the surface of what is. Vision perceives what's beneath and above, and merges with your own creativity to produce your own perception, your own reality, your own world. - Erwan Le Corre

162

On the mountains of truth you can never climb in vain: either you will reach a point higher up today, or you will be training your powers so that you will be able to climb higher tomorrow.—Friedrich Nietzsche

163

Study without desire spoils the memory, and it retains nothing that it takes in. ― Leonardo da Vinci

164

Wisdom, when spoken aloud, always sounds a little foolish. Perhaps that's because when we hear something that makes sense to us, we think we already know it. But often we don't. - Herman Hesse (this has been paraphrased by another author).

165

America owes most of its social prejudices to the exaggerated religious opinions of the different sects which were so instrumental in establishing the colonies. - James Fenimore Cooper

166

We are here and it is now: further than that all human knowledge is moonshine. - H. L. Mencken, 1880 - 1956

167

A man of words and not of deeds is like a garden full of weeds.

168

Every right implies a responsibility; Every opportunity, an obligation, Every possession, a duty. - John D. Rockafeller

169

Save when you can and not when you have to.

170

Success comes from keeping the ears open and the mouth closed. - John D. Rockafeller

171

It was my pride that I was taken in as an equal, in spirit as well as in fact. - Jack London

172

If I see a man with a good brain who simply won't get down and dig, who won't master fundamentals, I cannot help but pity him. So it is with your life's work; say that such is not your temperament, etc.; and in short are cowardly. - Jack London

173

so be it. The end is not yet. If I die I shall die hard, fighting to the last, and hell shall receive no fitter inmate than myself. - Jack London

174

And when we sincerely choose happiness as a governing principle of our lives, we quickly learn that circumstance has no inherent power. Any power that our life circumstance holds, is power that we give it. To borrow a line from one of my personal heroes, Viktor Frankl (Man’s Search for Meaning), “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” - Richie Norton

175

Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful. - William Morris

176

Live as long as you may, the first twenty years are the longest half of your life. They appear so while they are passing; they seem to have been so when we look back on them; and they take up more room in our memory than all the years that succeed them. -Robert Southey

177

I will not die an unlived life. I will not live in fear of falling or catching fire. I choose to inhabit my days, to allow my living to open me, to make me less afraid, more accessible; to loosen my heart until it becomes a wing, a torch, a promise. I choose to risk my significance, to live so that which came to me as seed goes to the next as blossom, and that which came to me as blossom, goes on as fruit. - Dawna Markova

178

Inspiration is for amateurs. The rest of us just show up and get to work. - Chuck Close

179

The truth is that the dreams that you have are very different from the actions that will get you there. - James Clear

180

It must be produced and discharged and used up in order to exist at all. - William Faulkner likening gratitude to electricity

181

History is merely a list of surprises. It can only prepare us to be surprised yet again. Please write that down. - Kurt Vonnegut's main character in Slapstick

182

It is not knowledge, but the act of learning, not possession but the act of getting there, which grants the greatest enjoyment. - Carl Friedrich Gauss, 1777 - 1855

183

Mission Statement: A long awkward sentence that demonstrates management's inability to think clearly.

Scott Adams

Mission statement

184

The Dilbert Principle: The most ineffective workers are systematically moved to the place where they can do the least damage - Management. - Scott Adams

185

We're a planet of nearly six billion ninnies living in a civilization that was designed by a few thousand amazingly smart deviants. - Scott Adams

186

Nothing defines humans better than their willingness to do irrational things in the pursuit of phenomenally unlikely payoffs. This is the principle behind lotteries, dating, and religion. - Scott Adams

187

I have two doctors, my left leg and my right. When my body and mind are out of gear (and this twin parts of me live at such close quarters that one always catches meloncholy from the other) I know that I have only to call my doctors and I shall be well again. - George Macaulay Trevelyan, "Walking," 1913

188

Life is not a problem to be solved but a reality to be experienced. - Søren Kierkegaard, 1813 - 1855

189

People are very open-minded about new things - as long as they're exactly like the old ones. - Charles F. Kettering, 1876 - 1958

190

The only difference between a problem and a solution is that people understand the solution. - Charles F. Kettering, 1876 - 1958

191

If you want to kill any idea in the world today, get a committee working on it. - Charles F. Kettering, 1876 - 1958

192

If you have always done it that way, it is probably wrong. - Charles F. Kettering, 1876 - 1958

193

The wisest are the most annoyed at the loss of time. - Dante Alighieri, 1265 - 1312

194

He who cannot rest, cannot work; he who cannot let go, cannot hold on; he who cannot find footing, cannot go forward. - Harry Emerson Fosdick, 1878 - 1969

195

The world is moving so fast these days that the man who says it can't be done is generally interrupted by someone doing it. - Harry Emerson Fosdick, 1878 - 1969

196

Barbarism is needed every four or five hundred years to bring the world back to life. Otherwise it would die of civilization. - Edmond de Goncourt, 1822 - 1896

197

Never speak of yourself to others; make them talk about themselves instead; therein lies the whole art of pleasing. Everybody knows it, and everyone forgets it. - Edmond de Goncourt, 1822 - 1896

198

People don't like the true and simple; they like fairy tales and humbug. - Edmond de Goncourt, 1822 - 1896

199

Be mindful of your actions. Express your fully engaged attentiveness like a cat when it stalks a mouse. The cat crouches with the spirit of its whole being focused on the task at hand. Mental involvement in the actions being performed engages the whole being in the exercise, producing far greater results than merely performing them through repetition. - Dave Richardson, MovNat Alumnus

200

Habit is habit, and not to be flung out of the window by any man, but coaxed downstairs a step at a time. -Pudd’nhead Wilson’s Calendar, Mark Twain

201

If you want to know your past look into your present conditions. If you want to know your future look into your present actions. - Chinese proverb

202

Words are, in my not-so-humble opinion, our most inexhaustible source of magic. Capable of both inflicting injury, and remedying it. - Professor Dumbledore

203

Don’t look at the wall. Your car goes where your eyes go. - Mario Andretti

204

Most people need love and acceptance a lot more than they need advice. - Bob Goff

205

The people who stick with their goals don’t let their emotions determine their actions. Top performers still find a way to show up, to work through the boredom, and to embrace the daily practice that is required to achieve their goals. - James Clear

206

Einstein stated: "Theories should be as simple as possible, but no simpler." So we will say "Training should be as simple as possible, but no simpler."

207

If I find a cow turd on my front steps, I'm not satisfied knowing that I'll be mentally prepared to find some future cow turd. I want to shovel that turd onto my garden and hope the cow returns every week so I never have to buy fertilizer again. Failure is a resource that can be managed. - Scott Adams

208

With an obedient and disciplined brain a man live always right up to the standard of his best moments. - Arnold Bennett, The Human Machine

209

As Milton wrote inParadise Lost, “[The mind] can make a heaven of hell or a hell of heaven.”

210

A practice (as a noun) can be anything you practice on a regular basis as an integral part of your life—not in order to gain something else, but for its own sake… For a master, the rewards gained along the way are fine, but they are not the main reason for the journey. Ultimately, the master and the master’s path are one. And if the traveler is fortunate—that is, if the path is complex and profound enough—the destination is two miles farther away for every mile he or she travels. – George Leonard

211

I don't know what I want. Nobody knows — or if they do, they don't know for long. I mean, you don't want the same thing long enough for it to be What You Want From Life in capital letters. - Tallulah Bankhead, 1902 - 1968

212

Here's a rule I recommend. Never practice two vices at once. - Tallulah Bankhead, 1902 - 1968

213

Don’t be the person who says yes with their mouth but no with their actions.” - Ryan Holiday

214

In the information game, the race doesn’t go to the swift, it goes to the selective. - Tim Ferriss

215

The most effective form of learning is practice, not planning. - James Clear

216

Argue for your limitations, and sure enough they’re yours. - Richard Bach

217

My schedule is far less about what I want to get done and far more about who I want to become. - Bill Hybel

218

The strong do what they have to do and the weak accept what they have to accept. - Thucydides

219

If what you are doing is not moving you towards your goals, then it’s moving you away from your goals. - Brian Tracy

220

The more a person limits himself, the more resourceful he becomes. - Soren Kierkegaard

221

If the path before you is clear, you're probably on someone else's. - Joseph Campbell

222

Death is nothing to us, since when we are, death has not come, and when death has come, we are not. - Epicurus

223

If a man has reported to you, that a certain person speaks ill of you, do not make any defense to what has been told you: but reply, The man did not know the rest of my faults, for he would not have mentioned these only. - Epictetus

224

The most courageous decision that you can make each day is to be in a good mood. - Voltaire

225

Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final. - Rainer Maria Rilke

226

A good marriage is one in which each spouse secretly thinks he or she got the better deal, and this is true also of our friendships. - Anne Lamott

227

Things usually happen around us, not to us. - Unknown, found on Reddit

228

Thinking is easy, acting is difficult, and to put one’s thoughts into action is the most difficult thing in the world. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

229

There are risks and costs to action. But they are far less than the long-range risks of comfortable inaction. - John F. Kennedy

230

Character is like a tree and reputation like a shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing. - Abraham Lincoln

231

There is no past and no future; no one has ever entered those two imaginary kingdoms. There is only the present. - Leo Tolstoy

232

In the morning when thou risest unwillingly, let this thought be present- I am rising to the work of a human being. Why then am I dissatisfied if I am going to do the things for which I exist and for which I was brought into the world? - Marcus Aurelius

233

We are like butterflies who flutter for a day and think it is forever. - Carl Sagan

234

It’s not always that we need to do more but rather that we need to focus on less. - Nathan W. Morris

235

Perfection is finally attained not when there is no longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away. - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

236

We shall never have more time. We have, and have always had, all the time there is. - Arnold Bennett

237

You can turn over a new leaf every hour if you choose. - Arnold Bennett

238

Perfection of character: to live your last day, every day, without frenzy, or sloth, or pretense. - Marcus Aurelius

239

As kids, we move a lot without thinking, but as grown-ups we think too much without moving. - Erwan Le Corre

240

I change my mind when the facts change. What do you do? - John Maynard Keynes

241

He who is not contented with what he has, would not be contented with what he would like to have. - Socrates

242

The condition and characteristic of an uninstructed person is this: he never expects from himself profit (advantage) nor harm, but from externals. The condition and characteristic of a philosopher is this: he expects all advantage and all harm from himself. - Epictetus

243

Today I escaped from anxiety. Or no, I discarded it, because it was within me, in my own perceptions-not outside. - Marcus Aurelius

244

It is time you understand that true spirituality means that you yourself become the living expression of the divine teaching you follow. - Omraam Mikhaël Aïvanhov

245

The hidden harmony is better than the obvious. - Heraclitus

246

Shedding one’s skin. The snake that cannot shed its skin perishes. So do the spirits who are prevented from changing their opinions; they cease to be spirit. - Nietzsche

247

I was wise enough to never grow up while fooling most people into believing I had. - Margaret Mead

248

Time is the king of all men, he is their parent and their grave, and gives them what he will and not what they crave. - Pericles

249

Man is most nearly himself when he achieves the seriousness of a child at play. - Heraclitus

250

Nothing, to my way of thinking, is a better proof of a well ordered mind than a man's ability to stop just where he is and pass some time in his own company. - Lucius Annaeus Seneca

251

Keeping one’s distance from an ignorant person is equivalent to keeping company with a wise man. - Ali Bin Abi-Taleb

252

I’ve never been interested in pursuing a normal life. There are enough people doing that. More growth and discovery seems to happen when I’m uncomfortable. - Derek Sivers

253

If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change. - Wayne Dyer

254

You might feel dumb asking questions, but you look dumber when you don't get it because you failed to ask.

255

Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain—and most fools do. But it takes character and self-control to be understanding and forgiving. - Benjamin Franklin

256

Accept—then act. Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it. Always work with it, not against it. Make it your friend and ally, not your enemy. This will miraculously transform your whole life. - Eckart Tolle

257

Happiness is like a butterfly: the more you chase it, the more it will evade you, but if you notice the other things around you, it will gently come and sit on your shoulder. - Henry David Thoreau

258

Talent hits a target no one else can hit; genius hits a target no one else can see. - Arthur Schopenhauer

259

Anger has a honey tip, but a poison source. - Buddha

260

Observe always that everything is the result of change, and get used to thinking that there is nothing Nature loves so well as to change existing forms and make new ones like them. - Marcus Aurelius

261

Here is my secret. It is very simple: it is only with the heart that one can see rightly. What is essential is invisible to the eye. - Antoine de Saint Exupéry

262

To a disciple who was forever complaining about others, the Master said, ‘If it is peace you want, seek to change yourself, not other people. It is easier to protect your feet with slippers than to carpet the whole of the earth.’ - Anthony de Mello

263

For a master, the rewards gained along the way are fine, but they are not the main reason for the journey. Ultimately, the master and the master’s path are one. And if the traveler is fortunate—that is, if the path is complex and profound enough—the destination is two miles farther away for every mile he or she travels. - George Leonard

264

The purpose of life, as far as I can tell, is to find a mode of being that’s so meaningful that the fact that life is suffering is no longer relevant. - Jordan Peterson

265

There are people who make no mistakes because they never wish to do anything worth doing. - Goethe

266

It is not enough to know, we must also apply; it is not enough to will, we must also do. - Goethe

267

Were you to live three thousand years, or even thirty thousand, remember that the sole life which a man can lose is that which he is living at the moment; and furthermore, that he can have no other life except the one he loses… This means that the longest life and the shortest amount to the same thing. For the passing minute is every man’s equal possession, but what has once gone by is not ours. - Marcus Aurelius

268

“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day.—’Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.’—Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.” - find source on optimize

269

Men seek for seclusion in the wilderness, by the seashore, or in the mountains - a dream you have cherished only too fondly yourself. But such fancies are wholly unworthy of a philosopher, since at any moment you choose you can retire within yourself. Nowhere can man find a quieter or more untroubled retreat than in his own soul; above all, he who possesses resources in himself, which he need only contemplate to secure immediate ease of mind - the ease that is but another word for a well-ordered spirit. Avail yourself often, then, of this retirement, and so continually renew yourself. - Marcus Aurelius

270

When he was asked in an interview who didn’t make it out of the Hanoi Hilton, [James] Stockdale replied: Oh, that’s easy, the optimists. Oh, they were the ones who said, ‘We’re going to be out by Christmas.’ And Christmas would come, and Christmas would go. Then they’d say, ‘We’re going to be out by Easter.’ And Easter would come, and Easter would go. And then Thanksgiving, and then it would be Christmas again. And they died of a broken heart. . . . This is a very important lesson. You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end—which you can never afford to lose—with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.

271

Weak people revenge. Strong people forgive. Intelligent people ignore. - Albert Einstein

272

B.H. Liddell Hart’s old line that sometimes the longest way around is the shortest way home. - B.H. Liddell (same meaning as Slow is smooth. Smooth is fast)

273

Ignorance more often begets confidence than knowledge. - Charles Darwin

274

He who least needs tomorrow, will most gladly greet tomorrow. - Epicurus

275

Having knowledge but lacking the power to express it clearly is no better than never having any ideas at all. - Pericles

276

If all you did was just looked for things to appreciate, you would live a joyously spectacular life. - Esther Abraham Hicks

277

Let go or be dragged. - Zen Proverb

278

When we have alternatives, we compromise instead of commit. - Seth Godin

279

Be messy and complicated and afraid and show up anyways. - Glennon Doyle Melton

280

Beware the stories you read or tell; subtly, at night, beneath the waters of consciousness, they are altering your world. - Ben Okri

281

The gulf between competence and incompetence amplifies the more competence is needed. - Shane Parrish, Farnham Street

282

Anticipate, but don’t expect. Anticipation: You’re excited for what the future holds, but you don’t try to control it. Expectation: You try to predict the future and restrict your happiness to one outcome. - James Clear

283

Concentration produces wealth. Diversification protects wealth. - James Clear

284

Always be excited about the possibilities. Never be entitled to them."

285

Because that’s all there is. The response. This is not to dismiss the immense difficulty of any of these ordeals. It is rather, to first, be prepared for them — humble and aware that they can happen. Next, it is the question: Will we resist breaking? Or will we accept the will of the universe and seek instead to become stronger where we were broken? Death or Kintsugi? Fragile or, to use that wonderful phrase from Nassim Taleb, Antifragile? Not unbreakable. Not resistant. Because those that cannot break, cannot learn, and cannot be made stronger for what happened. - Ryan Holiday

286

In a world where information is abundant and easy to access, the real advantage is knowing where to focus. - James Clear

287

The world breaks everyone, and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. - Ernest Hemingway

288

Every day of our lives, we are on the verge of making those slight changes that would make all the difference. - Mignon McLaughlin

289

Praise invariably implies a reference to a higher standard. - Aristotle

290

Life is not only a pleasure but a kind of eccentric privilege. - G.K. Chesterton (it’s been granted to us)

291

The more we value things outside our control, the less control we have. - Epictetus

292

If you can't do it with feeling - don't. - Patsy Cline

293

You take people as far as they will go, not as far as you would like them to go. - Jeannette Rankin

294

The real problem of humanity is the following: we have paleolithic emotions; medieval institutions; and god-like technology. - E.O. Wilson

295

The greatest virtues are those which are most useful to other persons. - Aristotle

296

If someone is able to show me that what I think or do is not right, I will happily change. For I seek the truth, by which no one ever was truly harmed. Harmed is the person who continues in his self-deception and ignorance. - Marcus Aurelius

297

A thousand half-loves must be forsaken to take one whole heart home. - Rumi

298

If one notices how some individuals know how to treat their experiences (their insignificant everyday experiences) so that these become a plot of ground that bears fruit three times a year; while others (and how many of them!) are driven through the waves of the most exciting turns of fate, of the most varied currents of their time or nation, and yet always stay lightly on the surface, like cork: then one is finally tempted to divide mankind into a minority (minimality) of those people who know how to make much out of little and a majority of those who know how to make a little out of much; indeed, one meets those perverse wizards who, instead of creating the world out of nothing, create nothing out of the world. - Friedrich Nietzsche

299

Envy of other people shows how they are unhappy. Their continual attention to others behavior shows how they are boring. - Seneca

300

Society tames the wolf into a dog. And man is the most domesticated animal of all. - Nietzsche

301

There comes a point where we need to stop just pulling people out of the river. We need to go upstream and find out why they’re falling in. - Bishop Desmond Tutu

302

Don’t postpone joy until you have learned all of your lessons. Joy is your lesson. - Alan Cohen

303

Imagine how you want to feel at the end of the day. Start working towards that now. - Lin-Manuel Miranda

304

I’m not in the White House. Tried for that job. I didn’t get it. So all I can do from where I am is to say, ‘All right, how do we get things done from here?’ - Mitt Romney

305

Don't count the days. Make the days count. - Muhammad Ali

306

Perfectionism becomes a badge of honor with you playing the part of the suffering hero. - David D. Burns

307

The grass is always greener because it’s been fertilised with bullshit. Enjoy what you have. - @pTah_XV (twitter user)

308

Get up! Do not lie there ‘thinking.’ Nothing good every came from that. Get up! Begin your day! - Paramahansa Yogananda

309

Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now! - Goethe

310

Observe the movements of the stars as if you were running their courses with them, and let your mind constantly dwell on the changes of the elements into each other. Such imaginings wash away the filth of life on the ground. - Marcus Aurelius

311

If you do not change direction, you might end up where you are heading. - Lao Tzu

312

If someone could only see my actions and not hear my words, what would they say are my priorities? - James Clear

313

If you have good habits, time becomes your ally. All you need is patience. - James Clear

314

A good listener is one who helps us overhear ourselves. - Yahia Lababidi

315

Your life is designed to get the results you are getting right now. Whether you realize it or not, you are the architect. - Shane Parrish

316

Asking myself "is this helping me get what I want" is becoming one of my favorite questions. - Shane Parrish

317

The universe is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper. - Eden Phillpotts

318

The way of fortune is like the milky way in the sky; which is a number of small stars, not seen asunder, but giving light together: so it is a number of little and scarce discerned virtues, or rather faculties and customs, that make men fortunate. - Francis Bacon

319

The more control you have over your attention, the more control you have over your future. - James Clear

320

Anything that's human is mentionable, and anything that is mentionable can be more manageable. - Fred Rogers

321

Without noticing we’re doing it, we treat the future as intrinsically more valuable than the present. And yet the future never seems to arrive. - Oliver Burkeman

322

What you are aware of you are in control of. What you are not aware of is in control of you. - Anthony De Mello

323

Every single qualification for success is acquired through habit. People form habits and habits form futures. If you do not deliberately form good habits, then unconsciously you will form bad ones. You are the kind of person you are because you have formed the habit of being that kind of person, and the only way you can change is through habit. - Albert Gray

324

Give equal space to the thought, "What if it all works out?" - Colleen Jornlin (Twitter @gggingersnappp)

325

There are decades where nothing happens, and there are weeks where decades happen. - Vladimir Lenin

326

Don’t look for the next opportunity. The one you have in hand is the opportunity. - Paul Arden

327

Nothing is more pathetic than people who run around in circles, ‘delving into the things that lie beneath,’ and conducting investigations into the souls of the people around them. - [[Marcus Aurelius]]

328

Wealth is the power to choose. Financial wealth is the power to choose how to spend money. Social wealth is the power to choose who to hang out with. Time wealth is the power to choose how to spend your day. Mental wealth is the power to choose how to spend your attention. - James Clear

329

Taking ownership of your time means I only have this much time to live, I’d better make the most of it, I’d better make it alive time, I’d better be urgent, have a bit of an edge, be aware of each moment as it’s passing and not in a fog. - [[Robert Greene]] from [Alive Time vs. Dead Time](https://fs.blog/knowledge-project/robert-greene/)

330

Nothing is more pathetic than people who run around in circles, 'delving into the things that lie beneath,' and conducting investigations into the souls of the people around them. - [[Marcus Aurelius]]

331

Do you imagine the universe is agitated? Go into the desert at night and look at the stars. This practice should answer the question. - [[Lao Tzu]]

332

Once a man worries, he clings to anything out of desperation; and once he clings he is bound to get exhausted or to exhaust whomever or whatever he is clinging to. A warrior-hunter, on the other hand, knows he will lure game into his traps over and over again, so he doesn’t worry. - Carlos Castaneda wisdom from The Wheel of Time

333

You have comfort. You don’t have luxury. And don’t tell me that money plays a part. The luxury I advocate has nothing to do with money. It cannot be bought. It is the reward of those who have no fear of discomfort. - Jean Cocteau

334

Despite your best efforts, not everyone wants to be helped. Make a difference where you can and be at peace with the rest.

Gary Hopkins

Coaching, Help

335

Life is like a trumpet. If you don't put anything into it, you don't get anything out.

W.C. Handy

Hard work, Try Harder, Work

336

You will never be happier than you expect. To change your happiness, change your expectation.

Bette Davis

Expectations

Happiness

337

The man who views the world at 50 the same as he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life.

Muhammad Ali

Growth

Maturity Transformation View

338

Nothing is a greater impediment to being on good terms with others than being ill at ease with yourself.

Honoré de Balzac

Self-help, Self-improvement

339

I was nervous, but my mind didn’t allow me to think about failure. I was coming to America to compete in the Mr. Universe, and then my goal was to never leave. I didn’t have a Plan B. Plan B was to try harder at Plan A.

Arnold Schwarzenegger

Action

Plan A Try Harder

340

You can tell you have created God in your own image when he hates all the same people you do.

Tom Weston

God Hate

Religion

341

The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference.

Elie Wiesel

Indifference

342

Most of the world’s biggest problems are because of somebody trying to find a simple answer.

Anthony Bourdain

Black and White Thinking, Gray Area

343

Nothing is more exhausting than the task that’s never started. –GRETCHEN RUBIN

Gretchen Rubin

Action

Procrastination

344

A man who has a vision is not able to use the power of it until after he has performed the vision on earth for the people to see.

Black Elk

Fool, Vision

345

“‘I shall take the heart,’ returned the Tin Woodsman; ‘for brains do not make one happy, and happiness is the best thing in the world.’”

L. Frank Baum

Happiness

346

Perfectionism is not a quest for the best. It is a pursuit of the worst in ourselves, the part that tells us that nothing we do will ever be good enough-that we should try again.

Julia Cameron

perfectionism

347

Happiness is not the absence of problems, it’s the ability to deal with them.

Steve Maraboli

Happiness, Problem

348

I’ve never seen any life transformation that didn’t begin with the person in question finally getting tired of their own bullshit.

Elizabeth Gilbert

Self-improvement, Transformation

349

Do as little as needed, not as much as possible.

Henk Kraaijenhof

Busyness

350

Death does not concern us, because as long as we exist, death is not here. And when it does come, we no longer exist.

Epicurus

Death, Fear, Memento mori

351

Death does not concern us, because as long as we exist, death is not here. And when it does come, we no longer exist.

Epicurus

Death, Fear, Memento mori

352

"“There is time enough for everything, in the course of the day, if you do but one thing at once; but there is not time enough in the year, if you will do two things at a time.”"

Philip Dormer Stanhope Chesterfield Essentialism

Essentialism, Priorities

(Philip Dormer Stanhope Chesterfield, Letters to His Son on the Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman, 1746-47) Philip Letters to His Son on the Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman, 1746-47

353

The problem isn’t that you feel like shit. The problem is that you’re behaving like shit and then blaming it on your feelings.

Mark Manson

Behavior, Feelings, Self-help

https://youtu.be/c3uoyCNIa5c

354

Eventually .... Execution beats luck Consistency beats intensity Curiosity beats smart Kind beats clever Together beats alone

Unknown

Consistency, Curiosity, Kind

355

Nothing other people do is because of you. It is because of themselves. All people live in their own dream, in their own mind; they are in a completely different world from the one we live in. When we take something personally, we make the assumption that they know what is in our world, and we try to impose our world on their world.

Don Miguel Ruiz

Assumptions, Taking Things Personally

From The Four Agreements

356

The largest part of what we call ‘personality’ is determined by how we’ve opted to defend ourselves against anxiety and sadness.

Alain de Botton

Anger, Personality, Sadness

357

We do not want merely to see beauty. We want something else which can hardly be put into words — to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves.

C.S. Lewis

Beauty, Nature

358

The best years of your life are the ones in which you decide your problems are your own. You do not blame them on your mother, the ecology, or the president. You realize that you control your own destiny.

Albert Ellis

Blame, Control, Responsibility

359

Waiting is a trap. There will always be reasons to wait — The truth is, there are only two things in life, reasons, and results, and reasons simply don’t count.

Robert Anthony

Action

Procrastination Results Waiting

360

Hard choices, easy life. Easy choices, hard life.

Jeezy Gregorek

Choices

361

The unhappy person resents it when you try to cheer him up, because that means he has to stop dwelling on himself and start paying attention to the universe. Unhappiness is the ultimate form of self-indulgence.

Tom Robbins

Self-indulgence, Unhappiness

362

Caretake This Moment. Caretake this moment. Immerse yourself in its particulars. Respond to this person, this challenge, this deed. Quit the evasions. Stop giving yourself needless trouble. It is time to really live; to fully inhabit the situation you happen to be in now. You are not some disinterested bystander. Participate. Exert yourself. Respect your partnership with providence. Ask yourself often, How may I perform this particular deed such that it would be consistent with and acceptable to the divine will? Heed the answer and get to work. When your doors are shut and your room is dark, you are not alone. The will of nature is within you as your natural genius is within. Listen to its importunings. Follow its directives. As concerns the art of living, the material is your own life. No great thing is created suddenly. There must be time. Give your best and always be kind.

Epictetus

Action

Morning Motivation

363

Dig deep within yourself, for there is a fountain of goodness ever ready to flow if you will keep digging.

Marcus Aurelius

Morning Motivation, Persistence

364

It always seems nicer to shut our eyes and hit the snooze button a few times. But we can’t—because we have a job to do. Not only do we have the calling we’re dedicated to, but we have the larger cause that the Stoics speak about: the greater good. We cannot be of service to ourselves, to other people, or to the world unless we get up and get working—the earlier the better. So c’mon. Get in the shower, have your coffee, and get going.

Ryan Holiday

Action

Morning Motivation Prosum Purpose Service

How to Have the Best Week Ever - http://ryanholiday.net/)

365

This is the true joy in life: being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community, and as long as I live it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no "brief candle" for me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.

George Bernard Shaw

Action

Morning Motivation Purpose

366

Our life is what our thoughts make it.

Marcus Aurelius

Perspective, Thoughts

367

The things you think about determine the quality of your mind. Your soul takes the color of your thoughts.

Marcus Aurelius

Perspective, Thoughts

368

If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.

Wayne Dyer

Perspective

369

When circumstances aren’t ideal, don’t assume you have no control. You always do. So instead of feeling bad that you can’t do everything, do something!

Gary Collins

Action

The Simple Life Guide to Optimal Health

370

Negative thoughts compound. The more you think of yourself as worthless, stupid, or ugly, the more you condition yourself to interpret life that way. You get trapped in a thought loop.

James Clear

Compounding, Negativity

Atomic Habits

371

Be radically proactive about any behavior that pays off in 10 years.

James Clear

Delayed Gratification, Habits, Proactive

372

Courage is the most important of all the virtues, because without courage you can’t practice any other virtue consistently. You can practice any virtue erratically, but nothing consistently without courage.

Maya Angelou

Courage, Virtue

373

Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point, which means at the point of highest reality C.S. Lewis

C.S. Lewis

Courage, Virtue

374

I remember standing on a street corner with the black painter Beauford Delaney down in the Village waiting for the light to change, and he pointed down and said, ‘Look.’ I looked and all I saw was the water. And he said, ‘Look again,’ which I did, and I saw oil on the water and the city reflected in the puddle. It was a great revelation to me. I can’t explain it. He taught me how to see, and how to trust what I saw. Painters have often taught writers how to see. And once you’ve had that experience, you see differently.

James Baldwin

Awareness, Noticing, Seeing

375

Think small and act small, and we'll get bigger. Think big and act big, and we'll get smaller.

Herb Kelleher

Action

Ego

Southwest Airlines Founder and CEO

376

If your why isn't big enough ...your excuses will be.

Jason McKim

Excuses, Procrastination, Purpose, Why

377

“When she was once asked, ‘Do you pray?’ she responded, ‘I pray every second of my life; not on my knees but with my work. My prayer is to lift women to equality with men. Work and worship are one with me.’”

Susan B. Anthony

Action

Integrity Prayer Service

378

A blazing fire makes flame and brightness out of everything that is thrown into it.

Marcus Aurelius

Action

Obstacle is the Way

379

In theory, there’s no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is.

Yogi Berra

Action

Practice Theory

380

You are under no obligation to remain the same person you were a year ago, a month ago, or even a day ago. You are here to create yourself, continuously.

Richard Feynman

Change, Self-improvement

381

Once, Kobun asked one of his students, “When all the teachers are gone, who will be your teacher?” The student replied, “Everything!” Kobun paused, then said, **“No, you.”**

Héctor García and Francesc Miralles

Education, Life-long Learner, Teacher

The Book of Ichigo Ichie

382

Why are you unhappy? Because 99.9 per cent of everything you think, and of everything you do, is for yourself – and there isn’t one.

Wei Wu Wei

Ego, Happiness, Self

383

Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall.

F. Scott Fitzgerald

Fall/Autumn, Start

The Great Gatsby

384

What looks like talent is often careful preparation. What looks like skill is often persistent revision.

James Clear

Persistence, Preparation, Skill, Talent

385

One day after another— Perfect. They all fit.

Robert Creeley

Bird by bird

386

Happy work is best done by the man who takes his long-term plans somewhat lightly and works from moment to moment. It is only our daily bread that we are encouraged to ask for. The present is the only time in which any duty can be done or any grace received.

C.S. Lewis

Procrastination, Productivity

387

You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think.

Marcus Aurelius

Memento mori

388

Never let your memories be bigger than your dreams.

Doug Ivester

Dreams, Future, Memories, Past

389

Why should you feel anger at the world, as if the world would notice?

Euripides

Anger, Control

390

If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.

Wayne Dyer

Attention, Filter

391

Simplicity is the end result of long, hard work; not the starting point.

Frederick Maitland

Simplicity

392

You could be good today, but instead you choose tomorrow.

Marcus Aurelius

Carpe diem

"I’ve always found it’s better to think about what I want my ordinary life to look like most of the time. Then I try to make decisions based on the simple metric of whether they allow for more or less of that right now. A really cool job opportunity? I’ll consider it. But wait, it means I have to move my family to D.C., wear a suit most days, and be on someone else’s schedule? And I won’t be able to write much? Never mind, sorry. Oh, I could make a lot of money investing in startups? I like the sound of that. But I’ll have to read lots of pitch decks and go to lots of meetings? You know what, I’ll pass. I’m a firm believer that how long we live is outside of our control. I don’t feel comfortable trading the present for an uncertain future. “You could be good today,” the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius wrote. “But instead you choose tomorrow.” That quote haunts me as much as it inspires me. And it does a lot of each." (http://ryanholiday.net/, You Could Have Today. Instead You Choose Tomorrow. - http://ryanholiday.net/)

393

It is not doubt but certainty that drives you mad.

Nietzsche

Certainty, Doubt

394

Work like you don’t need the money. Love like you’ve never been hurt. Dance like nobody’s watching.

Satchel Paige

Dance, Life, Love, Money

395

Age is a question of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it don’t matter.

Satchel Paige

Age, Aging

https://melmagazine.com/en-us/story/satchel-paige-how-to-stay-young?utm_source=GetTheElevatordotcom

396

Just remember that finishing lines are good, but their most important role is to get you over the start line in the first place.

Stevie Smith (not the poet)

Action

Progress

This little piece of wisdom is from . Stevie embarked on a human-powered journey around the world — Expedition 360 — and reached Hawaii under pedal power*. I learned about him from a little chapter in One Man and His Bike by Mike Carter. The chapter where he speaks with Stevie I immediately reread as soon as I finished it. Mike also shared this deeper and more poetic version of the same insight: “Happiness is the acceptance of the journey as it is now, not the promise of the other shore."

397

Happiness is the acceptance of the journey as it is now, not the promise of the other shore.

Stevie Smith (not the poet)

Happiness, Journey, Progress

398

It is as easy to deceive oneself without perceiving it as it is difficult to deceive others without their perceiving it.

François duc de La Rochefoucauld

Deception, Fool

399

If you want to build a ship, don't drum up the people to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast endless sea.

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Coaching, Motivation

400

Men see a little, presume a good deal, and so jump to the conclusion.

Thomas McRae

Assumptions, Simplicity

401

We are not given a short life, but we make it short, and we are not ill-supplied but wasteful of it.

Seneca

Action

Morning Motivation Time

402

I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.

Bruce Lee

Essentialism

403

Procrastinating on something important is choosing to delay a better future.

James Clear

Procrastination

404

What looks like a talent gap is often a focus gap. The 'all star' is often an average to above average performer who spends more time working on what is important and less time on distractions. The talent is staying focused.

James Clear

Distractions, Focus

405

Take a simple idea and take it seriously.

Charlie Munger

Essentialism

406

The chains of habit are too weak to be felt until they are too strong to be broken.

Samuel Johnson

Habits

407

We chase what's sexy and miss what matters. While excitement starts something, execution completes it. While speed makes a good story, velocity makes an outcome. While complexity makes you sound smart, focusing on the key basics matters more. While new commands our attention, nature offers insight.

Shane Parrish

Action

Attention Direction Essentialism Insight Simplicity

408

I cannot judge what he did, because I did not have his information.

Lee Kuan Yew

Judgement

former Prime Minister of Singapore

409

You could be good today. But instead, you choose tomorrow.

Marcus Aurelius

Priorities, Procrastination, Shit or Get Off the Pot

410

Imagine life as a game in which you are juggling some five balls in the air. You name them — work, family, health, friends, and spirit… and you’re keeping all of these in the air. You will soon understand that work is a rubber ball. If you drop it, it will bounce back. But the other four balls — family, health, friends, and spirit — are made of glass. If you drop one of these, they will be irrevocably scuffed, marked, nicked, damaged, or even shattered. They will never be the same.

Brian Dyson

Priorities, Work/Life Balance

Former CEO of Coca-Cola

411

Human beings need forgiveness like we need oxygen — a nation devoid of grace will make its people miserable.

David French

Forgiveness, Grace

412

There are professional habits and amateur ones. Which are you practicing? Is this a pro or an amateur move? Ask yourself that. Constantly.

Ryan Holiday

Habits, Professionalism

Adapted from Stephen Pressfield

413

When someone tells you something is wrong, they’re almost always right. When someone tells you how to fix it, they’re almost always wrong. This applies to both writing and life.

Ryan Holiday

Advice, Truth, Wrong

But from many others

414

Give more./Give what you didn’t get./Love more./Drop the old story.

Garry Shandling

Change Attitude, Giving, Love

415

“That’s the problem with clarity,” responded the Avatar. “It often sounds insulting.”

Scott Adams

Clarity, Honesty, Truth

From The Religion War

416

C.S. Lewis

Present, Time, Work

417

Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work at hand. The sun’s rays do not burn until brought to a focus.

Alexander Graham Bell

Concentration, Focus

418

Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on Earth.

Muhammad Ali

Service

419

Feed a man a fish, feed him for a night. Teach a man to fish, feed him for a lifetime. Teach a man to reason from first principles, he can teach himself to fish. Then he can invent a better fishing rod and feed a billion people.

Tim Urban

First principals

420

Therefore, dear Sir, love your solitude and try to sing out with the pain it causes you. For those who are near you are far away, you write, and this shows that the space around you is beginning to grow vast. And if what is near you is far away, then your vastness is already among the stars and is very great; be happy about your growth, in which of course you can’t take anyone with you, and be gentle with those who stay behind; be confident and calm in front of them and don’t torment them with your doubts and don’t frighten them with your faith or joy, which they wouldn’t be able to comprehend. Seek out some simple and true feeling of what you have in common with them, which doesn’t necessarily have to alter when you yourself change again and again; when you see them, love life in a form that is not your own and be indulgent toward those who are growing old, who are afraid of the aloneness that you trust. Avoid providing material for the drama that is always stretched tight between parents and children; it uses up much of the children’s strength and wastes the love of the elders, which acts and warms even if it doesn’t comprehend. Don’t ask for any advice from them and don’t expect any understanding; but believe in a love that is being stored up for you like an inheritance, and have faith that in this love there is a strength and a blessing so large that you can travel as far as you wish without having to step outside it.

Rainer Maria Rilke

Expectations

Growth

421

“It’s dark because you’re trying too hard,” said Susila. “Dark because you want it to be light. Remember what you used to tell me when I was a little girl. ‘Lightly, child, lightly. You’ve got to learn to do everything lightly. Think lightly, act lightly, feel lightly. Yes, feel lightly, even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them.’ I was so preposterously serious in those days, such a humorless little prig. Lightly, lightly—it was the best advice ever given me. Well, now I’m going to say the same thing to you, Lakshmi . . . Lightly, my darling, lightly. Even when it comes to dying. Nothing ponderous, or portentous, or emphatic. No rhetoric, no tremolos, no self-conscious persona putting on its celebrated imitation of Christ or Goethe or Little Nell. And, of course, no theology, no metaphysics. Just the fact of dying and the fact of the Clear Light. So throw away all your baggage and go forward. There are quicksands all about you, sucking at your feet, trying to suck you down into fear and self-pity and despair. That’s why you must walk so lightly. Lightly, my darling. On tiptoes; and no luggage, not even a sponge bag. Completely unencumbered.”

Aldous Huxley

From the novel Island

422

The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away.

Pablo Picasso

Meaning of life

423

All religions are true, but none are literal.

Joseph Campbell

Religion

424

Don't let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.

John Wooden

Limiting beliefs

425

We live in a world of magnificent maybe.

Steven Kotler

Uncertainty

Belief

"In The White Album, Joan Didion wrote "We tell ourselves stories in order to live" and then proceeded to tell a story about a time in her life when the stories she told herself began to fail. Maybe that's how it is for all of us. Maybe that's how things go. Maybe we tell ourselves such stories right up until the moment we can no longer tell ourselves such stories. We believe the earth is flat until we believe it is round. We believe in a geocentric universe until we believe in a heliocentric universe. We believe that heliocentric universe governed by a fixed logic until we believe that heliocentric universe all relative. We believe the speed of light is inviolate, until we find out that entangled particles could outpace the speed of light. Scientists now believe that the quantum world is a world of possibility. They believe that our most fundamental level of reality is not any one firm reality, rather the possibility of an infinite number of possibilities. We cannot find the cornerstone of our foundation because everything and nothing are the cornerstones of our foundation. **We live in a world of magnificent maybe.** And every now and again someone rattles the bones of the past in the direction of the future in the hopes that a wave will rise." (Steven Kotler, West of Jesus)

426

Uncertainty is an uncomfortable position. But certainty is an absurd one.

Voltaire

Uncertainty

Certainty

427

Felix culpa

Tim Ferriss

Felix culpa. “Felix culpa is a Latin phrase that comes from the words felix, meaning ‘happy,’ ‘lucky,’ or ‘blessed,’ and culpa, meaning ‘fault’ or ‘fall.’ In the Catholic tradition, the phrase is most often translated ‘happy fault,’ as in the Catholic Exsultet. Other translations include ‘blessed fall’ or ‘fortunate fall.’” More broadly and put another way in Oxford Languages: “an apparent error or disaster with happy consequences.”

428

If an action tires your body and puts your heart at ease, do it.

Xunxi

429

Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds you plant.

Robert Louis Stevenson

There are no rows in this table

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