#inspirationalquotesbookselected — Public Fediverse posts

Strategy

What matters is whether a certain approach gets you to where you want to go. And let’s be clear, using obstacles against themselves is very different from doing nothing. Passive resistance is, in fact, incredibly active. But those actions come in the form of discipline, self-control, fearlessness, determination, and grand strategy.

~ Ryan Holiday

slip:4a1558.

Pragmatism

Pragmatism is not so much realism as flexibility. There are a lot of ways to get from point A to point B. It doesn’t have to be a straight line. It’s just got to get you where you need to go. But so many of us spend so much time looking for the perfect solution that we pass up what’s right in front of us.

~ Ryan Holiday

slip:4a1553.

Hopefulness

Unlike cynicism, hopefulness is hard-earned, makes demands upon us, and can feel like the most indefensible and lonely place on earth. Hopefulness is not a neutral position—it is adversarial. It is the warrior emotion that can lay waste to cynicism.

~ Nick Cave

slip:4a1552.

Reality

In this modern age, very little remains that is real. Night has been banished, so have the cold, the wind and the stars. They have all been neutralized: The rhythm of life itself is obscured. Everything goes so fast and makes so much noise, and men hurry by without heeding the grass by the roadside, its colour, its smell and the way it shimmers when the wind caresses it. What a strange encounter then is that between man and the high places of his planet!

~ Gaston Rébuffat

slip:4a1550.

Ritual

Ritual is not the re-enactment of a past event. It is the re-enactment of meaning.

~ David Whyte

slip:4a1545.

The job

A man’s job is to make the world a better place to live in, so far as he is able—always remembering the results will be infinitesimal—and to attend to his own soul.

~ Leroy Percy

slip:4a1539

Education

What is defeat? Nothing but education; nothing but the first step to something better.

~ Wendell Phillips

slip:4a1534.

The real fear

These are serious fears. But they’re not the real fear. Not the Master Fear, the Mother of all Fears that’s so close to us that even when we verbalize it we don’t believe it. Fear That We Will Succeed. That we can access the powers we secretly know we possess. That we can become the person we sense in our hearts we truly are.

~ Steven Pressfield

slip:4a1527.

One’s voice

The fact is one’s own voice is not heard anywhere else. It’s a challenge to be yourself. It makes a lot of courage.

~ Yusef Lateef

slip:4a1515.

Luxury

Modern luxury is the ability to think clearly, sleep deeply, move slowly, and live quietly in a world designed to prevent all four.

~ Justin Welsh

slip:4a1510.

First priority

Make your own recovery the first priority in your life.

~ Robin Norwood

slip:4a1508.

Pursue your dreams

Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you’ve imagined. As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler.

~ Henry David Thoreau

slip:4a1504.

The play instinct

The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct acting from inner necessity. The creative mind plays with the objects it loves.

~ Carl Jung

slip:4a1495.

Conduct of life

Silence is the absolute poise or balance of body, mind, and spirit. The man who preserves his selfhood ever calm and unshaken by the storms of existence—not a leaf, as it were, astir on the tree; Not a ripple upon the surface of shining pool—his, in the mind of the unlettered sage, is the ideal attitude and conduct of life.

~ Charles Eastman

slip:4a1486.

Excellence

What I understand today is that when the Stoics said that there was an opportunity in every obstacle, what they meant was the opportunity to practice virtue. To be a good person despite the bad things that have happened. To do good in the world despite the bad that has befallen you. They were speaking of the idea of arete. Excellence—in all forms.

~ Ryan Holiday

slip:4a1483.

Somewhat higher

The rung of a ladder was never meant to rest upon, but only to hold a man’s foot long enough to enable him to put the other somewhat higher.

~ Thomas Henry Huxley

slip:4a1476.

Obstacles

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

~ Robert Brault

slip:4a1475.

The best you can

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

~ Maya Angelou

slip:4a1473.

Peculiar thinking

Every man has some peculiar train of thought which he falls back upon when he is alone. This, to a great degree, molds the man.

~ Dugald Stewart

slip:4a1468.

Risk

I do not intend to take dangerous chances, both because I have no wish to get hurt and because a fall would stop my experimenting, which I would not like at all. The man who wishes to keep at the problem long enough to really learn anything positively must not take dangerous risks.

~ Wilbur Wright

slip:4a1466.

Everyone else

If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.

~ Haruki Murakami

slip:4a1463.

Open to

It’s a rare person who wants to hear what he doesn’t want to hear.

~ Richard Cavett

slip:4a1458.

A good story

The best arguments in the world won’t change a single person’s mind. The only thing that can do that is a good story.

~ Richard Powers

slip:4a1449.

Wisdom

My definition of wisdom is knowing the long-term consequences of your actions.

~ Naval Ravikant

slip:4a1448.

Improvement

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

slip:4a1443.

Lists

To-do lists tend to be long; Success lists are short. One pulls you in all directions; The other aims you in a specific direction. One is a disorganized directory and the other is an organized directive. If a list isn’t built around success, then that’s not where it takes you. If your to-do list contains everything, then it’s probably taking you everywhere but where you really want to go.

~ Gary Keller

slip:4a1441.

Stick

Be like a postage stamp—stick to one thing until you get there.

~ Josh Billings

slip:4a1439.

Room

Giving yourself the time and sapce to think and feel is crucial to your existence. Personhood requires encapsulation. You have to find a way to be yourself before you can share yourself.

~ Jaron Lanier

slip:4a1434.

Reset

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

~ Anne Lamott

slip:4a1420.

Success

This week I’ve been reading a lot and doing little work. That’s the way things ought to be. That’s surely the road to success.

~ Anne Frank

slip:4a1416.