849 Quotations Found

One of the surest roads to disappointment is expecting people to act rationally or consistently.

Author: Jeff Blum | Subjects: Life & Society, Personal Improvement

Here’s the thing, however, about radical change. It is, as our more numerate readers might say, a “high-variance strategy,” meaning that the range of possible outcomes is far wider than what we might expect from more incremental, within-the-system change.

Perhaps we nail the jackpot and manage to hit upon the political choices that really can create something meaningfully better out of a broken system. But … [ Read more ]

Author: Bryan Walsh | Sources: MSN, Vox | Subjects: Change, Concepts, History, Life & Society, Politics & Public Policy

Maybe we’re as much what we hate as what we love. In the end, we all pick a team, or a team picks you.

Author: Russell Lewis | Source: Endeavour (TV Series) | Subjects: Life & Society, Love, Personal Improvement, Psychology | Behavior

Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.

Author: Simone Weil | Source: The Marginalian (Brain Pickings) | Subjects: Life & Society, Personal Improvement, Psychology | Behavior, Relationships

We have a great, habitual fear inside ourselves. We’re afraid of many things — of our own death, of losing our loved ones, of change, of being alone. The practice of mindfulness helps us to touch nonfear. It’s only here and now that we can experience total relief, total happiness… In the practice of Buddhism, we see that all mental formations — including compassion, love, … [ Read more ]

Author: Thich Nhat Hanh | Source: The Marginalian (Brain Pickings) | Subjects: Life & Society, Personal Improvement

Fearlessness is what love seeks. Such fearlessness exists only in the complete calm that can no longer be shaken by events expected of the future… Hence the only valid tense is the present, the Now.

Author: Hannah Arendt | Source: The Marginalian (Brain Pickings) | Subjects: Life & Society, Love, Relationships

It’s possible to care deeply without taking ourselves so seriously.

Author: Faith Hill | Source: The Atlantic | Subjects: Life & Society, Personal Improvement

Diversity is being invited to the party; inclusion is being asked to dance.

Author: Vernā Myers | Subjects: Life & Society, Race Relations

Destroy the idea that you have to be constantly working or grinding in order to be successful. Embrace the concept that rest, recovery, and reflection are essential parts of the progress towards a successful and ultimately happy life.

Author: Unknown | Subjects: Life & Society, Personal Improvement

Too many people settle for dumb luck and hope for the best, when they should be orchestrating smart luck. Although success in work and life often appears to be the result of random events, in truth the lucky ones often managed the broader context better. Some people may attribute their success to a few key breaks, such as a professor who helped them or an … [ Read more ]

Author: Paul J.H. Schoemaker | Source: Management Business Review (MBR) | Subjects: Life & Society, Personal Improvement, Success / Failure

It is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.

Author: J.K. Rowling | Subjects: Life & Society, Personal Improvement, Psychology | Behavior

Mastery is the best goal because the rich can’t buy it, the impatient can’t rush it, the privileged can’t inherit it, and nobody can steal it. You can only earn it through hard work. Mastery is the ultimate status.

Author: Derek Sivers | Source: Farnam Street | Subjects: Career, Education | Scholarship, Life & Society, Personal Improvement, Success / Failure

The self, the place where we live, is a place of illusion. Goodness is connected with the attempt to see the unself… to pierce the veil of selfish consciousness and join the world as it really is.

Author: Iris Murdoch | Source: The Marginalian (Brain Pickings) | Subjects: Life & Society, Psychology | Behavior

The things people love about you aren’t necessarily the things you want to be loved for. They decide they like you for reasons completely outside your control, of which you’re often not even conscious… At some point you have to accept that other people’s perceptions of you are as valid as (and probably a lot more objective than) your own.

Author: Timothy Kreider | Subjects: Life & Society, Personal Improvement, Relationships

We become what we consume. What you read today becomes the raw material of your thoughts tomorrow. High-quality inputs offer high-quality raw materials to assemble in the future. A person with an environment with rich sources of information makes better choices than someone consuming low-quality sources of information. Not only do they have better raw material, but they also have a broader perspective and a … [ Read more ]

Author: Shane Parrish | Source: Farnam Street | Subjects: Education | Scholarship, Health & Medicine, Learning, Life & Society, Personal Improvement

From the very beginning, the land of the free has also been about the freedom to make and spend money. America put God on our money, but for many Americans, money is God. This nation put profit over morality through centuries of slavery. Individual expediency in the name of capitalism is as American as the right to bear arms. Around the world, no idea has … [ Read more ]

Author: Xochitl Gonzalez | Source: The Atlantic | Subjects: America, Economics | Economy, International, Life & Society, Material Possessions, Politics & Public Policy

Many psychologists believe that as a species, humans are not evolved to enjoy the here and now. Rather, we are wired to time-travel mentally, mostly into the future, to consider new scenarios and try out new ideas. The social psychologist Martin Seligman goes so far as to call our species Homo prospectus.

Author: Arthur C. Brooks | Source: The Atlantic | Subjects: Life & Society, Psychology | Behavior

The nature of illusion is that it’s designed to make you feel good. About yourself, about your country, about where you’re going – in that sense it functions like a drug. Those who question that illusion are challenged not so much for the veracity of what they say, but for puncturing those feelings.

Author: Chris Hedges | Subjects: Education | Scholarship, Life & Society, Personal Improvement, Politics & Public Policy, Psychology | Behavior, Thought | Inquiry

The other thing that we must do in order to love the enemy neighbor is this: we must seek at all times to win his friendship and understanding rather than to defeat him or humiliate him. There may come a time when it will be possible for you to humiliate your worst enemy or even to defeat him, but in order to love the enemy … [ Read more ]

Author: Martin Luther King Jr. | Subjects: Life & Society, Personal Improvement, Politics & Public Policy

Overactive distrust leads to a dangerous endgame of broken institutions: politics, media, religion, science, expertise itself are all more suspect than ever. Should we complain about that? Fear it? Fix it? Or is the real problem within us?

Author: Mark Kingwell | Source: The Walrus | Subjects: Life & Society, Politics & Public Policy