quotes

Everything around you that you call "life" was made up by people that were no smarter than you. You can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use. — Steve Jobs

Hit 'em with a little "Flight of the Bumblebee". — Dr. Lee, Drumline

I do it for a challenge. I look around and see that most of the people I went to school with are dead or seriously ill and think how lucky I am. — 'Death Valley Jack' Dennis, oldest participant of the Badwater Ultramarathon

One million is 1+1+1 and so on. Every person and every action is important. — Anote Tong, president of Kiribati

The sun has not caught me in bed in fifty years. — Thomas Jefferson

Start copying what you love. Copy, copy, copy, copy. And at the end of the copy, you will find yourself. — Yohji Yamamoto

I’m the big buck of this lick. If any of you want to try it, come on and whet your horns. — Abraham Lincoln

If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice. — Freewill, Rush

Are you gonna do something or just stand there and bleed? — Doc Holliday, Tombstone

Every man dies, not every man really lives. — William Wallace, Braveheart

The mystery of life isn’t a problem to solve, but a reality to experience. — Frank Herbert

If you want to be happy, be. — Leo Tolstoy

Life begins at the end of your comfort zone. — Neale Donald Walsch

The best way to escape from a problem is to solve it. — Brandan Francis

A man travels the world over in search of what he needs and returns home to find it. — George Moore

Time isn't the main thing. It's the only thing. — Miles Davis

Everything you want is on the hard side of work. — Tim Kennedy

Great stories happen to those who can tell them. — Ira Glass

Why can’t life’s problems hit us when we’re seventeen and know everything? — A.C. Jolly

We do not remember days, we remember moments. — Cesare Pavese

We must all either wear our or rust out, every one of us. My choice is to wear out. — Theodore Roosevelt

The fairest rules are those to which everyone would agree if they did not know how much power they would have. — John Rawls

Power doesn’t always corrupt. Power always reveals. — Robert Caro

Stop trying to borrow wisdom and think for yourself. Face your difficulties and think and think and think and solve your problems yourself. Suffering and difficulties provide opportunities to become better. Success is never giving up. — Taiichi Ohno

There are no traffic jams on the extra mile. — Zig Ziglar

I'm going to adjust your perspective a little bit. That was no will. What you were using, what Michael Jordan uses and what I use, is not will. It's love. When you love something, it's a bottomless pool of energy. That's where the energy comes from. But you have to love it sincerely. Not because you're going to make money from it, be famous, or get whatever you want to get. When you do it because you love it, then you can find yourself moving up and getting really good at something you wanted to be really good at. Will is like not eating dessert or something that's just forcing yourself. You can't force yourself to be what you have made yourself into. You can love it. Love is endless. Will is finite. — Jerry Seinfeld

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

It is important to draw wisdom from many different places. If you only draw wisdom from one place, it becomes rigid and stale. Understanding others, the other elements and the other nations, will help you become whole. — Uncle Iroh, Avatar: The Last Airbender

They can’t kill you and they can’t eat you. Suit up. — Len Fassler

Better necessarily implies different. — Unknown

What's the one thing you can do such that by doing it everything else will be easier or unnecessary? — Gary Keller

You cannot wake someone up who is pretending to be asleep. — Zen koan

We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery, we need humanity. More than cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness. — Charlie Chaplin

The worst evils in history have always been committed by those who truly believed they were combating evil. Beware of combating evil. — Unknown

If you were to put your problem down on a table at the same time as others, odds are you’ll pick your own up pretty quick. — Chris Bosh

When you focus on the past, that’s your ego. When I focus on the future, that's my pride. I try to focus on the present. That's humility. — Giannis Antetokounmpo

Suffering is necessary until you realize it is unnecessary. — Eckhart Tolle

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. — Elinor Smith

Sometimes magic is just someone spending more time on something than anyone else might reasonably expect. — Raymond Joseph Teller

The speed of the leader is the speed of the game. — Debbie Pierce

The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference. — Elie Wiesel

From error to error, one discovers the entire truth. — Sigmund Freud

This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness. — Dalai Lama

The almost insoluble task is to let neither the power of others, nor our own powerlessness, stupefy us. — Theodor W. Adorno

Patience is not passive; on the contrary, it is concentrated strength. — Bruce Lee

Everything we have belongs to others; time alone is ours. — Seneca

It never gets easier, you just get faster. — Greg LeMond

The grass is always greener on the side that’s fertilized with bullshit. — Unknown

We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children. — Native American Proverb

The reason adults should look as though they are having fun is to give kids a reason to want to grow up. — Patch Adams

And remember this, that if you've been hated, you've also been loved. — Henry James, “The Portrait of a Lady”

Millions long for immortality who don’t know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon. — Susan Ertz

Despair is a failure of the imagination. — Wade Davis

Last year a foolish monk. This year: no change. — Ryokan

People fail to notice what they do when awake, just as they forget what they do while asleep. — Heraclitus

Look around. All that clutter used to be money. All that money used to be time. — Unknown

When things don’t work, double down on iteration. When things do work, double down on consistency. — Janis Ozolins

Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants. — Epictetus

If someone is holding their breath waiting for you to fail, make sure they suffocate. — Random Redditor

Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. And, weak men create hard times. — G. Michael Hopf

Leading into a world of unknowns, a world where you don’t have the answer, the best you can do is to ask better questions, as well as help those around you to do the same. — Pascal Finett

I don’t want to show things, but to give people the desire to see. — Agnes Varda

Why seek revenge? Karma is going to get the bastards anyway. — Ajahn Brahm

Good listeners don't just absorb energy; they magnify it. They elevate it. They enrich it by the questions they ask and by the attention that they're paying to this person who's trying to communicate an important idea we're feeling. — Jack Zenger

Some people will never learn anything for this reason: because they understood everything too soon. — Alexander Pope

The most important decision you make is to be in a good mood. — Voltaire

We don’t stop playing because we grow old… We grow old because we stop playing. — George Bernard Shaw

Impostor syndrome isn't a disease. It's a normal response to internalizing impossibly high standards. — Adam Grant

The only man I know who behaves sensibly is my tailor; he takes my measurements anew each time he sees me. The rest go on with their old measurements and expect me to fit them. — George Bernard Shaw

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

There’s a world of difference between insisting on someone’s doing something and establishing an atmosphere in which that person can grow into wanting to do it. — Fred Rogers

If you only wished to be happy, this could be easily accomplished; but we wish to be happier than other people, and this is always difficult, for we believe others to be happier than they are. — Montesquieu

Our greatest fear should not be of failure, but of succeeding at things in life that don’t really matter. — Francis Chan

Happiness is the absence of the striving for happiness. — Chuang-Tzu

If you can use an AI to "speed" something up, it’s probably not a useful activity in the first place. — Ryan Broderick

We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospection. — Anaïs Ni

Life feels simpler when we tell ourselves there is a single truth and everything else is a deviation from that truth–an error, a lie, an ‘untruth’. It’s disturbing to imagine that we can shape reality simply by choosing a different truth. The very idea of competing truths feels slippery, disingenuous, conniving. — Hector Macdonald

Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall. — Oliver Goldsmith

Each day, the heaviest thing I lift in the gym is the door handle to come in and get started. I doubt it will ever not be a struggle, but the more that I do it, the lighter it becomes. — David Smith

Opinion is the lowest form of human knowledge. It requires no accountability, no understanding. The highest form of knowledge is empathy, for it requires us to suspend our egos and live in another’s world. It requires profound purpose larger than the self. — Bill Bullard

Whenever you’re chasing a big dream, you’re supposed to feel good a third of the time, okay a third of the time, and crappy or not great a third of the time, and if you feel roughly in those ratios, it means you are in fact chasing a dream. — Alexi Pappas

Too often we give our children answers to remember rather than problems to solve. — Roger Lewin

We change our behavior when the pain of staying the same becomes greater than the pain of changing. — Dr. Henry Cloud

The public has a distorted view of science because children are taught in school that science is a collection of firmly established truths. In fact, science is not a collection of truths. It is a continuing exploration of mysteries. — Freeman Dyson

Perfectionism is not as much the desire for excellence, as it is the fear of failure couched in procrastination. — Dan Miller

The catastrophe we think will happen has in fact already happened. — Donald Winnicott

Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity. — Simone Weil

"Someone bought the thing you liked and killed it" is the defining experience of the 21st century. — Dan Brooks

Rest and be thankful. — William Wadsworth

No matter how isolated you are and how lonely you feel, if you do your work truly and conscientiously, unknown friends will come and seek you. — Carl Jung

Expectations are like a debt that must be repaid before you get any joy out of what you’re doing. — Morgan Housel

Your heart's desire is to be told some mystery. The mystery is that there is no mystery. — Cormac McCarthy

Don’t try to fix people. Just set boundaries. — Shibetoshi Nakamoto

I believe pretty strongly that your overarching aim in life and work is to always be making yourself obsolete. — Tim Hanson

If we can’t laugh at something, we can’t think rationally about it. — Clay Johnson

The word sustainability can often give the false illusion that we are trying to keep everything the same and sustain the status quo indefinitely. In truth, it’s closer to the opposite. Sustainability is about constantly challenging the status quo in pursuit of something better. — Tom Greenwood

Logic is an invention of man and may be ignored by the universe. — Will Durant

The older I get, the more I'm conscious of ways very small things can make a change in the world. Tiny little things, but the world is made up of tiny matters, isn't it? — Sandra Cisneros

We can’t 100% every journey. — Jeremy Ward

Over my many years in politics and business, I have found one thing to be universally true: the kindest person in the room is often the smartest. — J.B. Pritzker

Happy endings don’t exist But here’s a pearl you may have missed Every day can be a happy beginning — Schmigadoon!

Every great movie we’ve done at Pixar, we get down to the end, and we’re three months from release, and we realize there’s a better ending and you have to have the courage to give up what’s very good to do what’s great. — Steve Jobs

There are a lot of people who get rich from your anger. Starve them. — Arnold Schwarzenegger

Opportunities do not float like clouds in the sky. They’re attached to people. If you’re looking for an opportunity, you’re really looking for a person. — Ben Casnocha

Tradition is a set of solutions for which we have forgotten the problems. Throw away the solution and you get the problem back. Sometimes the problem has mutated or disappeared. Often it is still there as strong as it ever was. — Donald Kingsbury

One is not nostalgic for the past the way it was, but for the past the way it could have been. — Svetlana Boym

Happiness isn’t something you experience; it’s something you remember. — Oscar Levant

Surround yourself with relentless humans. People who plan in decades, but live in moments. Train like savages, but create like artists. Obsess in work, relax in life. People who know this is finite, and choose to play infinite games. Find people going up mountains. Climb together. — Zach Pogrob

Vulnerability is not weakness; it's our most accurate measure of courage. — Brené Brown

The bike will go where you are looking. If you want to avoid the rock, never look at the rock. Always look at the gap you want to pass through. — Unknown

It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are. — E.E. Cummings

People get to where they are going because they know where they want to go. — Oprah Winfrey

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

Happiness is not a destination. Happiness is a direction. It's not a matter of being, but of becoming. — Arthur Brooks

I spent six hours drawing Pokémon today and it never occurred to me for a second that anyone else might be better or worse. Even if it had, I would have been excited for them, not sad for myself. — Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal, "Being"

The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them. — Thomas Merton

Be kind to your shadow. — Rebecca Lawless

Every existing thing is born without reason, prolongs itself out of weakness, and dies by chance. — John-Paul Sartre

I tried forgetting. Maybe I should try forgiving. — Fiddleford McGucket, Gravity Falls

I don’t know why people lose sight of the fact that having fun is one of the very best parts of being a human. — John Gruber

Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under trees on a summer's day, listening to the murmur of the water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time. — John Lubbock, The Use Of Life

Rest is for babies, and relaxation is for retired people. — Arnold Schwarzenegger

When you choose to spend your time and energy on something you can’t control, you’re also choosing not to use it somewhere where you might be able to have an impact. — Arnold Schwarzenegger

The great use of life is to spend it for something that outlasts it. — William James

I'm never not working on material. Every second of my existence, I'm thinking, could I do something with that? [That may sound torturous.] Your blessing in life is when you find the torture you're comfortable with. — Jerry Seinfeld

In an age of speed, I began to think nothing could be more invigorating than going slow. In an age of distraction, nothing can feel more luxurious than paying attention. — Pico Iyer

In most successful software projects, the expert developers working on that project have a shared understanding of the system design. This shared understanding is called ‘architecture.’ — Ralph Johnson

There can be no vulnerability without risk; there can be no community without vulnerability; there can be no peace, and ultimately no life, without community. — M. Scott Peck

I never allow myself to have an opinion on anything that I don’t know the other side’s argument better than they do. — Charlie Munger

I think a great way to go through a comedy career is to make yourself happy. If you stick to that, chances are that the worse thing that happens is you’ve made yourself happy. — Conan O’Brien

Join no creed, but respect all for the truth that is in them. — Robert Henri

Notice that, while lots of people are happy to tell you about Golden Ages, nobody ever seems to think one is happening right now. Maybe that’s because the only place a Golden Age can ever happen is in our memory. — Adam Mastroianni

What matters isn’t being applauded when you arrive — for that is common — but being missed when you leave. — Baltasar Gracián

The woods are lovely Dark and deep And we have miles to go Before we sleep — Robert Frost

Sadness will not kill you. Depression won’t, either. But fighting it will. Ignoring it will. — Brianna Wiest

During a comeback, you must pump yourself up, not beat yourself down. — Arnold Schwarzenegger

Sailors have an expression about the weather: they say, the weather is a great bluffer. I guess the same is true of our human society — things can look dark, then a break shows in the clouds, and all is changed, sometimes rather suddenly. — E.B. White

Make voyages. Attempt them. There's nothing else. — Tennessee Williams

It should be noted that no ethically-trained software engineer would ever consent to write a DestroyBaghdad procedure. Basic professional ethics would instead require him to write a DestroyCity procedure, to which Baghdad could be given as a parameter. — Nathaniel Borenstein

Fight for the things that you care about. But do it in a way that will lead others to join you. — Ruth Bader Ginsburg

I want AI to do my laundry and dishes so that I can do art and writing, not for AI to do my art and writing so that I can do my laundry and dishes. — Joanna Maciejewska

Fall in love with some activity, and do it! Nobody ever figures out what life is all about, and it doesn’t matter. Explore the world. Nearly everything is really interesting if you go into it deeply enough. Work as hard and as much as you want to on the things you like to do the best. Don’t think about what you want to be, but what you want to do. — Richard Feynman

Don't ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and go do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive. — Howard Thurman

The best in the world are not the best because they win every point. It's because they lose again and again and have learned how to deal with it. You accept it. Cry it out if you need to and force a smile. — Roger Federer

Being contented comes in little moments, here and there. At best, it’s a fleeting moment after a rainstorm when the sun’s coming out. — Conan O’Brien

Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away. — Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Most of us need just enough knowledge of the sciences, and it's delivered to us in metaphors and analogies that bite us in the bum if we think they're the same as the truth. — Terry Pratchett

The idea of a higher power can be knowledge. If you have a group of people who have found their way out of a horrible, addictive cycle, their accumulated knowledge is greater than mine. When I first went to Alcoholics Anonymous, that’s what I used as a higher power. — Craig Ferguson

What if arriving simply means waking up every day fulfilled, ready to accept the gift of another day with those that hold my heart? What if arriving simply means being confident that I am capable of handling that which comes my way? — Scott Silvi

Humans don’t mind hardship, in fact they thrive on it; what they mind is not feeling necessary. Modern society has perfected the art of making people not feel necessary. — Sebastian Junger

Psychology is a theory of human behavior. Philosophy is an ideal of human behavior. History is a record of human behavior. — Will Durant

No amount of sophistication is going to allay the fact that all your knowledge is about the past and all your decisions are about the future. — Ian Wilson

Some of us think holding on makes us strong; but sometimes it is letting go. — Herman Hesse

The worst happened, and then it passed. You lost the person you thought you couldn’t live without and then you kept living. You lost your job then found another one. You began to realize that safety isn’t in certainty, but in faith that you can simply keep going. — Brianna Wiest

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 cumbered with your old nonsense. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

I grow little of the food I eat, and of the little I do grow I did not breed or perfect the seeds. I do not make any of my own clothing. I speak a language I did not invent or refine. I did not discover the mathematics I use. I am protected by freedoms and laws I did not conceive of or legislate, and do not enforce or adjudicate. I am moved by music I did not create myself. When I needed medical attention, I was helpless to help myself survive. I did not invent the transistor, the microprocessor, object oriented programming, or most of the technology I work with. I love and admire my species, living and dead, and am totally dependent on them for my life and well being. — Steve Jobs

The human race is challenged more than ever before to demonstrate our mastery, not over nature but of ourselves. — Rachel Carson

What's next? What's next...? I prefer the question, what's now? — Trevor Noah

Keep my anger from becoming meanness. Keep my sorrow from collapsing into self-pity. Keep my heart soft enough to keep breaking. Keep my anger turned towards justice, not cruelty. Remind me that all of this, every bit of it; is for love. Keep me fiercely kind. — Laura Jean Truman

Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance and order and rhythm and harmony. — Thomas Merton

If you are honest, truthful, and transparent, people trust you. If people trust you, you have no grounds for fear, suspicion, or jealousy. — Dalai Lama

To live in this world you must be able to do three things: to love what is mortal; to hold it against your bones knowing your own life depends on it; and, when the time comes to let it go, to let it go. — Mary Oliver, "In Blackwater Woods"

There needs to be a meta-app that just takes all the apps and converts them back into Internet. — Zach Weinersmith

The true meaning of life is to plant trees under whose shade you do not expect to sit. — Nelson Henderson

When you let go of something, it will still be there for you when you need it. But because you have stopped clinging, you will have freed yourself up to tap into other possibilities. — Gordon MacKenzie

I want to make it clear any motivated human can execute the skills of a good manager — leadership comes from everywhere — and, more importantly, I believe managers tell you where you are. Leaders tell you where you are going. It’s a philosophy thing. — Michael Lopp

I'm trying to be an open book and show my process as much as possible because I don't think this is something that only really, really talented people can do. Hard work and consistent days can get you great results. — Josh Kerr, winner of the 2024 NYRR 5th Ave Mile

The only shortcut is doing something the right way the first time so that you don’t waste any time on the shortcuts. — Arnold Schwarzenegger

We must let go of the life we have planned so as to accept the one that is waiting for us. — Joseph Campbell

Genius is the power of carrying the feelings of childhood into the powers of manhood. — Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Creativity provokes the jealousy of the gods. This is why authentic creativity takes so much courage: an active battle with the gods is occurring. — Rollo May

Rivers do not drink their own water; trees do not eat their own fruit; the sun does not shine on itself, and flowers do not spread fragrance for themselves. Living for others is a rule of nature. — Pope Francis

Show up. Pay attention. Tell the truth. Deal with the consequences. — Stereophonic

One of the best secrets of a happy life is the art of extracting comfort and sweetness from every circumstance. — Thomas Mitchell

We don’t relax when we can trust the people around us. Maybe we can relax when we prove ourselves worthy of trust. At least in the small things. We can do the small things. We can live in small moments. We can find hope and love in the people around us. We can stand watch for them, and in turn, they will stand watch for us. — Mike Monteiro

People say that what we’re all seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think that’s what we’re really seeking. I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive. — Joseph Campbell

In life the challenge is not so much to figure out how best to play the game; the challenge is to figure out what game you’re playing. — Kwame Anthony Appiah

Nothing in life is to be feared; it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less. — Marie Curie

It is a curious thought, but it is only when you see people looking ridiculous that you realize just how much you love them. — Agatha Christie

If we are all going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, let that bomb when it comes find us doing sensible and human things—praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of darts—not huddled together like frightened sheep and thinking about bombs. — C.S. Lewis

Courage is contagious. When a brave man takes a stand, the spines of others are often stiffened. — Billy Graham

I don’t like that man. I must get to know him better. — Abraham Lincoln

I want to do important work, I said. Then smile at people you meet, she said & play with dogs & tuck a blanket around someone who falls asleep. That's not what I meant, I said. Of course you did, she said. You just had a smaller idea of important. — Kai

If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself but to your estimate of it. And this you have the power to revoke at any moment. — Marcus Aurelius

We get so used to the stories we tell about ourselves. This is why we sometimes need to find ourselves in the stories of others. — Leslie Jamison

The problem in this country is not that we fail to 'get along' with people, parties, and politics with which we disagree. The problem is that we are horrific at justly loving the people, places, and politics we purport to love. — Kiese Laymon

Compassion is not a relationship between the healer and the wounded. It’s a relationship between equals. Compassion becomes real when we recognize our shared humanity. — Tara Brach

The invitation of life is to show up and pay attention, to wake up to the present moment, and to be fully alive in the face of impermanence. — Frank Ostaseski

We are kept from our goal not by obstacles but by a clear path to a lesser goal. — Robert Brault

Excessive thought won’t solve a problem. Rather than trying to fix it by thinking, set your mind at ease. A solution will rise to the surface. Remember that wisdom comes from stillness. — Haemin Sunim

The whole universe is contained in an apple wedge in a lunch box. Apple tree, sunlight, cloud, rain, earth, air, farmer's sweat are all in it. Delivery truck, gas, market, money, cashier's smile are all in it. Refrigerator, knife, cutting board, mother's love are all in it. Everything in the whole universe depends on one another. Now, think about what exists in you. The whole universe is in us. — Haemin Sunim

One of the many, many, many mantras I had to adopt to make it to the end was, "this is a challenge, not a race." — Jenny Simpson, discussing her Great World Race experience (seven marathons on seven continents in seven consecutive days)

They are the books, the arts, the academes, That show, contain, and nourish all the world. — William Shakespeare

Theorizing is not nearly as effective as trying. — Charles F. Kettering

As you become an adult, you realize that things around you weren't just always there; people made them happen. But only recently have I started to internalize how much tenacity *everything* requires. That hotel, that park, that railway. The world is a museum of passion projects. — John Collison

The three things I need to be relaxed: boundaries, priorities, and mysticism. I would say that the mysticism is the most important, but the boundaries protect that. The plane of the apparent and the real, and the material, and the Newtonian physics, it’s too stressful. I need to have access to a deeper perspective, to be able to be relaxed enough to actually say and mean: "I have no cherished outcome." — Elizabeth Gilbert

The day science begins to study non-physical phenomena, it will make more progress in one decade than in all the previous centuries of its existence. — Nikola Tesla

I know for a fact that when people start worrying about what their audience is going to like, it weakens everything about the project. People who are deeply rooted and vested in their own personal world make the most interesting music. — Steve Albini

The records that people respond to seems to be that unfiltered communion from one person’s creative impulse manifested into reality somehow, and that’s what people are responding to in music. — Steve Albini

The secret is being able to express what you feel, and not what the other person wants you to hear. — Godfrey Reggio

It is useless work that darkens the heart. The delight of the nursing mother, of the scholar, of the successful hunter, of the good cook, of the skillful maker, of anyone doing needed work and doing it well–this durable joy is perhaps the deepest source of human affection and of sociality as a whole. — Le Guin, "The Dispossessed"

The best portion of a good man's life: his little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and love. — William Wordsworth, "Lyrical Ballads"

Anything human can happen to me, and I will do my best to handle it. — David Richo

When we tell ourselves we'll do something later we run the risk of waking up one day and finally realizing it's just not going to happen, not because we failed, but rather because it just became too late to try. — Strauss Zelnick

People try to do all sorts of clever and difficult things to improve life instead of doing the simplest, easiest thing—refusing to participate in activities that make life bad. — Leo Tolstoy

If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give into it. — Mary Oliver

Don’t look for peace. Don’t look for any other state than the one you are in now; otherwise, you will set up inner conflict and unconscious resistance. Forgive yourself for not being at peace. The moment you completely accept your non-peace, your non-peace becomes transmuted into peace. Anything you accept fully will get you there, will take you into peace. This is the miracle of surrender. — Eckhart Tolle

My pillars are empathy, curiosity, and kindness, and much else flows from that. — Ed Yong

You will always struggle with not feeling productive until you accept that your own joy can be something you produce. — Hank Green, "A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor"

Daydreaming is the opposite of doomscrolling. — Charlie Jane Anders

Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all. — Helen Keller

Appreciate everything endlessly. — Cabel Sasser

Failure is rarely the result of some isolated event. Rather, it is a consequence of a long list of accumulated little failures which happen as a result of too little discipline. Failure occurs each time we fail to think ... today, act ... today, care, strive, climb, learn, or just keep going ... today. The danger comes when we look at a day squandered and conclude that no harm has been done. After all, it was just one day. But add up these days to make a year and then add up these years to make a lifetime and perhaps you can now see how repeating today’s small failures can easily turn your life into a major disaster. — Jim Rohn

A man sees in the world what he carries in his heart. — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The little things? The little moments? They aren’t little. — Jon Kabat-Zinn

Happiness, not in another place but this place... not for another hour but this hour. — Walt Whitman

Success is being excited to go to work and being excited to come home. — Will Ahmed

Failure isn’t a necessary evil. In fact, it isn’t evil at all. It is a necessary consequence of doing something new. — Ed Catmull

There is a secret bond between slowness and memory, between speed and forgetting. — Milan Kundera, “Slowness”

No matter how many times you do something, there will come a day when you do it for the last time. — Sam Harris

Overthinking is the biggest waste of human energy. Trust yourself, make a decision, and gain more experience. There is no such thing as perfect. You cannot think your way into perfection, just take action. — Sylvester McNutt III

The art of not reading is a very important one. It consists in not taking an interest in whatever may be engaging the attention of the general public at any particular time. When some political or ecclesiastical pamphlet, or novel, or poem is making a great commotion, you should remember that he who writes for fools always finds a large public. A precondition for reading good books is not reading bad ones: for life is short. — Arthur Schopenhauer

History does not repeat itself, but it does suck a lot. — Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal, “Strong”

What is the ultimate quantification of success? For me, it’s not how much time you spend doing what you love. It’s how little time you spend doing what you hate. — Casey Neistat

There is no problem that doesn't have some underlying need for more optimism, stamina, resilience, and collaboration. — Jane McGonigal

I don’t believe in guilty pleasures. If you like something, like it. — Dave Grohl

What I want is so simple I almost can't say it--elementary kindness. Enough to eat. Enough to go around. The possibility that kids may grow up to be neither the destroyers nor the destroyed. That's about it. — Barbara Kingsolver

Stop measuring days by degree of productivity and start experiencing them by degree of presence. — Alan Watts

Each morning I wake to five ways this world is vile and six ways its not. — Lori Hetteen

If something doesn’t immediately impact your health, your family’s health, or your vision: it doesn’t fucking matter. — Arnold Schwarzenegger​

The key in life isn’t to escape routine but to create one we love—one that makes us walk around with a smile. — Alberto Gallego

The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way. — Marcus Aurelius

If you aren’t experiencing failure, then you are making a far worse mistake: You are being driven by the desire to avoid it. — Ed Catmull

Every life is organized around a small number of events that either propel us or bring us to a grinding halt. We spend the years between these episodes benefiting or suffering from their consequences until the arrival of the next forceful moment. — Hernan Diaz, "Trust"

Every time you’re tempted to slack off or do or be a little less than you could, remember that you are a person of integrity who lives by the simple creed: do what you said you would do, when you said you would do it, the way you said you would do it. — Larry Winget

Optimism isn’t enthusiasm. Enthusiasm is a feeling, optimism is a choice. — David Smith

In the afterlife, you may have forgotten the point of this world, but never the music. — Austin Kleon

Conversation enriches the understanding but solitude is the school of genius. — Edward Gibbon

I have a very simple rule that serves me well: Don’t think too much about your life after dinnertime. Thinking too much at the end of the day is a recipe for despair. Everything looks better in the light of the morning. Cliché, maybe, but it works. — Austin Kleon

Discipline is cheaper than regret. — Shane Parrish

I have learnt in life that almost everything is a muscle and can be practiced. — Winnie Lim

We must all suffer from one of two pains: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret. The difference is discipline weighs ounces while regret weighs tons. — Jim Rohn

The secret of getting ahead is getting started. — Mark Twain

Most inventors and engineers I’ve met are like me: they live in their heads. They’re almost like artists. In fact, the very best of them are artists. And artists work best alone. I’m going to give you some advice that might be hard to take. That advice is: Work alone. Not on a committee. Not on a team. — Steve Wozniak

We are so frequently absorbed in the thoughts of our life in totality, future worries, past regrets, that we fail to pay attention to the slivers of now that actually constitute our lives. — Scott H. Young

Yes, talent matters. I’m not going to stand here and tell you it doesn’t. But talent has a broad definition. Most of the time, it’s not about having a gift. It’s about having grit. In tennis, like in life, discipline is also a talent. And so is patience. Trusting yourself is a talent. Embracing the process—loving the process—is a talent. Managing your life, managing yourself. These can be talents, too. Some people are born with them. Everybody has to work at them. — Roger Federer

It was "Come and visit me again soon!" rather than "like and subscribe." — teddybear-halo

You learn how to program. You learn how to fix things. But the hardest thing you’ll ever learn is when to leave them broken. And maybe that’s the most human skill of all. — raf

Most people treat the present moment as if it were an obstacle that they need to overcome. Since the present moment is life itself, it is an insane way to live. — Eckhart Tolle

We didn’t complain. We just went out there and did it. And with a smile on our face. We realized that this was a special time and a special moment, and we didn’t take it for granted. Nothing was ever given to us, we had to go out there and take it. That’s exactly what we did, and we proved it every single night in that ring. — D-Von Dudley

You want to make a record? Well, shut up and make a record. On what record label, though? Just make a record label. Like, don’t ask, ‘Hey, do you want my record?’ Just make a record company. Find a recording studio. You know, get your friends to cut out some letters and make a picture sleeve. And there's nothing unique about this—it was done from the doo-wop days of the '50s all the way through to punk rock. But, you know, you want to make a fanzine? Okay, just do it, and a week later there’s five copies of Flaming Butt fanzine. — Henry Rollins

Being wrong isn't something to fear but rather something to expect. — Shane Parrish

Fast when we can be, accurate when we must be. — Brady Stromme

Your magic's real, so why aren't you using it? You could have the world for yourself You don't ever have to worry about losing it The magic inside of you is infinite — YACHT, “I Believe In You”

Style is a very simple matter; it is all rhythm. Once you get that, you can't use the wrong words. But on the other hand here am I sitting after half the morning, crammed with ideas, and visions, and so on, and can't dislodge them, for lack of the right rhythm. Now this is very profound, what rhythm is, and goes far deeper than any words. A sight, an emotion, creates this wave in the mind, long before it makes words to fit it. — Virginia Woolf

Don't be afraid to start over again. This time you're not starting from scratch, you're starting from experience. — Unknown

You can have results or excuses. Not both. — Arnold Schwarzenegger

Leap and the net will appear. — John Burroughs

People do not decide their futures. They decide their habits, and their habits decide their futures. — F.M. Alexander

One of the many things I love about the ultrarunning community in general is that it felt very akin to what it was like being in punk and indie circles when I was younger. Everybody who's doing this is doing it because they love it. People are coming from all walks of life to participate in this sport and challenge themselves—not because they think they're going to make money or get famous or whatever, but because they just love it. There's a real grassroots, DIY kind of vibe to a lot of the races that I run. It's a very community-oriented sport, in the same way that those early music scenes that I was in were: We're all doing this because we love it. We're all going to help each other. We're all going to participate and volunteer and give our time to this because we love it. — Ben Gibbard

THE MORE YOU RELAX, THE MORE YOU FLOAT. — Anonymous swimming instructor, as recalled by Katie Hawkins-Gaar

The entire self-help industry in one sentence: Do what makes mornings exciting and nights peaceful. Will this make me excited to wake up? Will this let me sleep in peace? Everything that fails both tests is noise. — Shane Parrish

Everything is the path. It’s impossible to get off the path. — Edith Zimmerman

As AI continues to commoditize once niche development skills, we’ve entered a new era. Technical brilliance alone isn’t the differentiator it used to be. Developers with emotional intelligence, communication skills and the ability to collaborate are the ones who now rise to the top. — Tim Haak

You need to forget who the fuck you think you are, and get back to who you really are. — Iggy Pop

And who will care, who will chide you if you wander away from wherever you are, to look for your soul? — Mary Oliver

You become what you give your attention to. — Epictetus

There will always be pressure on you to compromise, to sell yourself short, and there will always be people who want you to be something you are not. But none of those things can happen without your permission. My most urgent advice to an aspiring artist is always: be true to yourself, and just say no. — Geddy Lee

Some days you might not want to face the agony it takes to process the stuff you have in you—but this kind of work is not for the fragile. You have to be somewhat of a warrior. It’s why you see a lot of writer types that are kind of angry, itchy people. That’s because they’re playing chess with their psyche all the time. You have to be ready to grapple with the fact that some days there will be nothing. You’ve got to trust and remember that on other days there’ll be too much and it’ll make you crazy in a different way. So, I don’t really put that much pressure on myself to be like: “Okay, it’s Tuesday, I must be creative.” I’m gonna see if there’s anything there first. — Henry Rollins

Everyone knows what works. Few do it after it stops being exciting. — Shane Parrish

Maintaining a sense of humor and focusing on small wins are great ways to find encouragement to keep going. Another way is to refuse to believe the bad press about human beings. We notice and pay the most attention to cruelty and inhumanity and that’s actually because our brains focus on the negative over anything else. But I like to remind us that the reason stories of cruelty are so shocking to us is that they go against most people's natural instincts. How else can we explain human survival to date? We mostly work cooperatively and we are often concerned with helping others. This is reflected in the world in small and big ways. We have to train our brains to notice. — Mariame Kaba

Sooner or later, you have to get back to living life. And in my experience, sooner is better. — Robert Plant

In times of change, learners inherit the earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists. — Eric Hoffer

To know someone's pain is to share in it. And to share in it is to relieve some of it. — Nnedi Okorafor

You may accumulate a vast amount of knowledge but it will be of far less value to you than a much smaller amount if you have not thought it over for yourself; because only through ordering what you know by comparing every truth with every other truth can you take complete possession of your knowledge and get it into your power. — Arthur Schopenhauer

Everybody's living through or for or against somebody else. It doesn't make too much sense, and it isn't working too well. — Ross Macdonald

Life to me was never about accomplishment, but about Happiness, which is Smiles minus Frowns. — Steve Wozniak

Make the music that you need, for need will be over, soon enough. — Richard Powers, “Orfeo“

I asked AI what we do with time, and it came back with words that were commercial and violent. We spend time, save time, take time, and make it; manage, track, and save it; we kill time, we pass it, we waste it, borrow, and steal it. We abuse time and it beats us back up, either in retribution or self-defense. It’s a zero-sum perspective of the material of our lives; it makes us prisoners to our own utility. The AI said nothing about love, loyalty, or enthusiasm. When you wrap those up, it becomes clear that the best thing to do with time is to devote it. — Frank Chimero

Winning is the ultimate 'fuck you' to anyone who ever didn't believe in you or didn't see it. But more than anything, it's a big 'fuck you' to the own little part in ourselves that actually believed them. — Aja

I go in and out, don't you?
Into flow and gratitude, and out of it again.
Into grief and hopelessness, and out of it again.
Into routine; cooking, walks, connection
And then into bed, the bath, my head, my tears.
These days call for the ability to sway, sway into reality, sway into empathy, and back again.
Dip toes into fear, anxiety, awareness and rest in creativity, distraction, comfort.
We go in and out, like tides creating our own slow rhythms-finding the pulse of survival. — Alix Klingenberg

Why do you assume when someone cannot see your worth that the fault lies with you and not in _their vision?_ — Hazel Satjia

For most of my life, I would have rolled my eyes at a lot of the language of kindness or self-empathy as insufferably fuzzy-minded, a kind of indulgence that distracts from more meaningful work. But further into adulthood, having grown, and endured loss, and been with loved ones and friends as they've grieved and struggled and been through all the countless small indignities that life inflicts on us all, I realize that it's actually pretty important to extend kindness to oneself. — Anil Dash

Every problem, every dilemma, every dead end we find ourselves facing in life, only appears unsolvable inside a particular frame or point of view. Enlarge the box, or create another frame around the data, and problems vanish, while new opportunities appear. — Rosamund and Benjamin Zander

When you lose your shit, you lose your leadership. — Taylor Swift

The only happy people I know are the ones who are working well at something they consider important. — Abraham Maslow

General ambition gives you anxiety. Specific ambition gives you direction. — George Mack

Let what you do mean something. — King Kong Bundy

Imagine being bitten by a snake, and instead of focusing on healing from the poison, you chase the snake to understand why it bit you and to prove that you didn't deserve it. — Unknown

Not to sound like a curmudgeon, but when I was a teenager, I took the train to go to the record store to find rare stuff. Spotify is way more convenient, but that wasn’t the point. The point was to get out and to feel like you’re hunting, to feel like you’re living your life. I’m going to the movies, I’m going to this show. What streaming has done—it’s very convenient, but it’s taken the feeling of going hunting and turned it into we’re all just being fed. We’re all farm animals that are just being fed, and we’re being fed content. You can just stay home. “Just stay home. We’ll just feed it to you.” No wonder everyone’s depressed. — Don Hertzfeldt

The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another. — William James

you are not here to prove your worth you are here to embody it and then to invite those who also honor it into your space — Hazel Satija

AI is the asbestos we are shoveling into the walls of our society and our descendants will be digging it out for generations. — Cory Doctorow

What matters most isn’t how quickly you find clarity, but how gently you treat yourself while you search for it — even if it never all makes sense. — Adam Bornstein

Even if you are auditioning for something you know you don’t like or are never going to get, whenever you get a chance to act in a room that someone else has paid for, it is a free chance to practice your craft. And in that moment, you should act as well as you can because if you leave that room and you have done this, there is no way the people who watched you will forget it. That is the only advice I have because it is always about that — if you are given the chance to act, take those words and bring them alive; and if you do that, something will ultimately transpire. — Phillip Seymour Hoffman

It’s impossible to be an atheist while listening to the music you love. — Simon Critchley

We sit on this dais for years, and we see the queens come through. And I wish everyone could see the auditions, because they're all the exact same. Until someone does one thing that's completely just themselves, and you're like "wait, what's that?!" I saw each and every one of your audition reels, and that is why you are here. They were special and unique. — RuPaul Charles

Read, every day, something no one else is reading. Think, every day, something no one else is thinking. Do, every day, something no one else would be silly enough to do. It is bad for the mind to continually be part of unanimity. — Christopher Morley

we are each other's
harvest:
we are each other's
business:
we are each other's
magnitude and bond. — Gwendolyn Brooks

You must cultivate activities that you love. You must discover work that you do, not for its utility, but for itself, whether it succeeds or not, whether you are praised for it or not, whether you are loved and rewarded for it or not, whether people know about it and are grateful to you for it or not. How many activities can you count in your life that you engage in simply because they delight you and grip your soul? Find them out, cultivate them, for they are your passport to freedom and to love. — Anthony de Mello

I loved you completely. And you loved me same. That’s all. The rest is confetti. — Elenor Crane, The Haunting of Hill House

We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all that we need to make us happy is something to be enthusiastic about. — Charles Kingsley

I can't imagine a deeper pit of hell than being concerned about how the things that bring you joy will be perceived. — Brennan Lee Mulligan

In my heart it is clear to me why I go to the line time and again. I can assure you it’s not a medal hanging around my neck I’m after. Medals are things I send to my mom in Winnipeg, which she in turn shares with friends and family. They are not what provide the deep sense of accomplishment, which fills my sense of self, in turn teaching me how to live. — Clara Hughes

Mandatory work earns you a living. Voluntary work earns you a future. — Shane Parrish

Perhaps, we should learn to love ourselves so loudly, it silences our insecurities. — Louise Kaufmann

I hope to arrive to my death,
late,
in love,
and a little drunk. — Atticus

I have been through winters before and I have always, eventually, found my way back to spring. The springs didn't come because I forced them or fixed myself or followed a twelve-step program. They came because seasons end. They came because the resting period did its hidden work. They came because, whether I knew it or not, I was gathering in the dark. — Joan Westenberg

I think and think and think, I've thought myself out of happiness one million times, but never once into it. — Jonathan Safran Foer

The enthusiast might not be as refined as the connoisseur. But they have a good deal more fun. — Joan Westenberg

Growth fills the hole left by the death of intrinsic purpose. It provides a default answer to "what should I do today?" which is simply "more than I did yesterday." It’s a low-barrier-to-entry faith; you don't need to study texts, you just need to hustle. — Joan Westenberg

Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it. — Mark Twain

The way you do anything is the way you do everything. — Suzanne Evans

It’ll all work out. Even if it doesn’t, it all works out. — Cody Blades

When I was young, I thought that nervousness and fear would disappear over time. But I realized that not only does it not disappear, it gets even worse. The only thing that changed is, now I accept it. I know it’s going to be there. I know how to deal with it. Now, with experience, I know I’m gonna be scared when the fight is coming; I know I’m not going to sleep well the week of the fight, but I accept it. [Early on in my career] I would freak out, sleeping only four hours the night before a fight. I put more pressure on myself, because I thought I wouldn’t be able to perform my best because of lack of sleep. But now I know it’s normal. I accept it. It’s a suffering process that I have to go through before a fight. But it’s still as bad as it was; the only difference is that I accept it now. — Georges St-Pierre

How in the hell could a man enjoy being awakened at 8:30 a.m. by an alarm clock, leap out of bed, dress, force-feed, shit, piss, brush teeth and hair, and fight traffic to get to a place where essentially you made lots of money for somebody else and were asked to be grateful for the opportunity to do so? — Charles Bukowski

If you’re in a situation of conflict, you can’t hold yourself responsible for their feelings. Regardless of how they handle the situation, you need to speak your truth. You need to do it in a respectful way, and then walk away knowing that you stood up for yourself. — Michelle McMahon

A fit body, a calm mind, and a house full of love. These things cannot be bought – they must be earned. — Naval Ravikant

Artists are driven by the tension between the desire to communicate and the desire to hide. — DW Winnicott

Mess up their metrics. In whatever way you are capable of. — Shubham Bose

I believe I know the only cure, which is to make one's center of life inside of one's self, not selfishly or excludingly, but with a kind of unassailable serenity — to decorate one's inner house so richly that one is content there, glad to welcome anyone who wants to come and stay, but happy all the same when one is inevitably alone. — Wendell Berry

The book, the painting, the film script is not the only art. It's important, but in a way it's a receipt. It's a diploma. The book you write, the painting you create, the music you compose is important and artistic, but it's also a mark of proof that you have done the work to learn, because in the end of it all, you are the art. The most important change made by an artistic endeavor is the change it makes in you. The most important emotions are the ones you feel when writing that story and holding the completed work. I don't care if the AI can create something that is better than what we can create, because it cannot be changed by that creation. — Brandon Sanderson

Everything that you’re feeling right now, name it love. Whether it’s fear, or sadness — everything that you’re feeling, name it love. — Andrea Gibson

I meet a lot of people. And see some great looking babies. A fire engine goes by, and I give them a thumbs up. I see a woman with a dog and I ask the woman what kind of dog that is. The moral of the story is we’re here on Earth to fart around. — Kurt Vonnegut

Be Kind. Bring Joy. Repeat. — "Weird Al" Yankovic

Suffering isn’t something I avoid. It’s something I love—I love what it brings, what’s on the other side of it. When we’re climbing Mt. Everest, we’re all suffering together, facing the same battle, chasing the same dream. Suffering makes the accomplishment that much more fulfilling. — Elizabeth Rose

Stop identifying yourself by a phase and start identifying yourself by what you’re going to do next. — Arnold Schwarzenegger

Desire is a contract you make with yourself to be unhappy until you get what you want. — Naval Ravikant