I’ve highlighted my favorites. December was the last quotes post, so my apologies – there are quite a few!
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let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us – Hebrews 12
Alexander the Great met a naked wise man, a gymnosophist. Alexander asked, “What are you doing?” and the gymnosophist answered, “I’m experiencing nothingness.” Then the gymnosophist asked, “What are you doing?” and Alexander said, “I am conquering the world.” And they both laughed.
Forgiveness means giving up all hope for a better past – Lily Tomlin
Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain. – Litany against Fear, used by the Bene Gesserit
Do those things that incline you toward the big questions, and avoid the things that would reduce you and make you trivial. – George Saunders
Gossip is black magic at its very worst because it is pure poison. We learned how to gossip by agreement. When we were children, we heard the adults around us gossiping all the time, openly giving their opinions about other people. They even had opinions about people they didn’t know. Emotional poison was transferred along with the opinions, and we learned this as the normal way to communicate. – Don Miguel Ruiz, The Four Agreements
“Ask someone to give a description of the personality type which he finds most despicable, most unbearable and hateful, and most impossible to get along with,” writes Edward Whitmont, “and he will produce a description of his own repressed characteristics….These very qualities are so unacceptable to him precisely because they represent his own repressed side; only that which we cannot accept within ourselves do we find impossible to live with in others.”
Every time you wake up and ask yourself, “What good things am I going to do today?” remember that, when the sun goes down at sunset, it will take a part of your life with it. – an Indian proverb
You should be truthful; you should avoid wrath; you should give to those who ask, because they ask for small things. You will become holier by following these three paths. – Dhammapada, a book of Buddhist wisdom
Is there anything more absurd than a person having a right to kill me because we live on two opposite banks of the river, and our kings quarrel with each other? – Blaise Pascal
No man really knows about other human beings. The best he can do is to suppose that they are like himself. – John Steinbeck
A lot of us think everyone else is living in Maslow’s Basement, while we’re in the Penthouse.
All our life, so far as it has definite form, is but a mass of habits – William James
Eternity is in love with the creations of time. – Blake
People are insanely self-conscious. People act like they’re always being watched. Even their house is a performance. – Elaine Miller
Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding. – Proverbs 4:7, King James Bible
Discipline is just choosing between what you want now and what you want most. – Abe Lincoln
Who are…the greatest benefactors of the living generation of mankind? I should say: ‘Confucius and Laotze, the Buddha, the Prophets of Israel and Judah, Zoroaster, Jesus, Mohammed and Socrates.’ – Toynbee
I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. – Maya Angelou
A deep river is not troubled if you throw a stone into it. If a religious person is hurt by criticism, then he is not a river but a shallow pool. – Saadi
So the Muse whispered in Beethoven’s ear. Maybe she hummed a few bars into a million other ears. But no one else heard her. Only Beethoven got it. – Steven Pressfield
conventional attitudes about work are, without the owners even knowing it, nth-degree imitations of the attitudes of people who’ve done great things. – pg
If you want to make ambitious people waste their time on errands, the way to do it is to bait the hook with prestige – pg
To maximize our own contentment, we seek the minimum amount of technology in our lives. Yet to maximize the contentment of others, we must maximize the amount of technology in the world. – Kevin Kelly
Goldie Hawn once observed that there are only three ages for an actress in Hollywood: “Babe, D.A., and Driving Miss Daisy.”
Whoever does not have the stomach for this fight, let him depart, give him his money to speed his departure, since we wish not to die in this man’s company. Whoever lives past today and comes home safely will rouse himself every year on this day and show his neighbor his scars, and tell him stories of their great feats in battle. These stories he will teach his son and from this day until the end of the world we shall be remembered. We few…we happy few…we band of brothers. For whoever has shed his blood with me shall be my brother. And those men afraid to go will think themselves lesser men as they hear of how we fought and died together. – Henry V, Shakespeare
The way to fame goes through the palaces, the way to happiness goes through the markets, the way to virtue goes through the deserts.
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