“When you grow up you, tend to get told that the world is the way it is and your life is just to live your life inside the world, try not to bash into the walls too much, try to have a nice family, have fun, save a little money. That’s a very limited life. Life can be much broader, once you discover one simple fact, and that is that everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you. And you can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use. Once you learn that, you’ll never be the same again.” STEVE JOBS.
“You’ve made this day a special day, by just your being you. There’s no person in the whole world like you, and I like you, just the way you are.” MISTER ROGERS.
“Instead of saying “I don’t have time” try saying “it’s not a priority,” and see how that feels. Often, that’s a perfectly adequate explanation. I have time to iron my sheets, I just don’t want to. But other things are harder. Try it: “I’m not going to edit your résumé, sweetie, because it’s not a priority.” “I don’t go to the doctor because my health is not a priority.” If these phrases don’t sit well, that’s the point. Changing our language reminds us that time is a choice. If we don’t like how we’re spending an hour, we can choose differently.” WSJ Article, “Are you as busy as you think.”
“The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.” HENRY DAVID THOREAU.
“One must be astonished totally, yet more and more softly. That is how eternity wonders at the times and changes them. One must wonder at the wonders.And also at the wounds, the deepest and last wounds, and elevate them to the wondrous.” HUGO BALL’S diary, 21 November, 1921.
“I always thought you were very single-minded about your dreams. But now I see that you skipped the struggle and went straight to the end.” from MAD MEN, TV show.
“Here’s my advice. Pretend you’re going to find out in a year that you have cancer, and then make all your decisions based on that.” Career Advice, source unknown.
“I love spending time in the woods because I believe it’s literally perfect. You could not design it better. It’s marvelous. And, when I’m in my cabin in those woods, I’m not fetishizing a simpler past, I’m fetishizing a simple present. I’m often thinking, “Holy shit, I spend some of my time working on the Internet, most of my time out here, I’m happy, my friends and family like it too, and this is economically sustainable.” ZACH KLEIN’S Blog. (Amen!, I say.)
“Sherman made the terrible discovery that men make about their fathers sooner or later . . . that the man before him was not an aging father but a boy, a boy much like himself, a boy who grew up and had a child of his own and, as best he could . . . adopted a role called Being a Father so that his child would have something mythical and infinitely important: a Protector, who would keep a lid on all the chaotic and catastrophic possibilities of life.” TOM WOLFE, The Bonfire of the Vanities.
“Remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see and wonder about what makes the universe exist. Be curious. And however difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do and succeed at. It matters that you don’t just give up.” STEPHEN HAWKING.
“There’s no such thing as work/life balance. There are work/life choices, and you make them, and they have consequences.” JACK WELCH.
“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.
“I wait by working.” RICHARD STALLMAN.
”You are not here merely to make a living. You are here in order to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, and with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world. You impoverish yourself if you forget that errand.” WOODROW WILSON.
“You have to begin to lose your memory, if only in bits and pieces, to realize that memory is what makes our lives. Life without memory is no life at all. Our memory is our coherence, our reason, our feeling, even our action. Without it, we are nothing.” Review for the play, “The Drawer Boy.”
“Leaders are not what many people think–people with huge crowds following them. Leaders are people who go their own way without caring, or even looking to see whether anyone is following them. “Leadership qualities” are not the qualities that enable people to attract followers, but those that enable them to do without them. The include, at the very least, courage, endurance, patience, humor, flexibility, resourcefulness, determination, a keen sense of reality, and the ability to keep a cool and clear head even when things are going badly. This is the opposite of the “charisma” that we hear so much about.” From Caterina.net.
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.” THEODORE ROOSEVELT, The Man in the Arena – April 23, 1910.
“Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.” RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
“One can live at a low flame. Most people do. For some, life is an exercise in moderation (best china saved for special occasions), but given something like death, what does it matter if one looks foolish now and then, or tries too hard, or cares too deeply?” DIANE ACKERMAN.
“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.” STEVE JOBS.
“A great burden was lifted from my shoulders the day I realized that no one owes me anything.” HARRY BROWNE.
“This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being a force of nature instead of a feverish selfish 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’ to me. It is sort of a splendid torch, which I have a hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it over to future generations.” GEORGE BERNARD SHAW.
