2098 Quotations Found

A relationship of intimacy between two people may be thought of as existing independent of the first five ways of time structuring: withdrawal, pastimes, activities, rituals, and games. It is based on the acceptance by both people of the I’m OK – You’re OK position. It rests, literally, in an accepting love where defensive time structuring is made unnecessary. Intimacy is a game-free relationship, since … [ Read more ]

Author: Thomas A. Harris | Subjects: Love, Personal Improvement, Psychology | Behavior, Relationships

It has been said that blaming your faults on your nature does not change the nature of your faults.

Author: Thomas A. Harris | Subject: Personal Improvement

Elton Trueblood suggests that causes for human behavior lie not only in the past but in man’s ability to contemplate the future, or estimate probabilities. “What is not, influences what is.”

Authors: Elton Trueblood, Thomas A. Harris | Subject: Psychology | Behavior

There is nothing that sustains you like hate; it is better to be anything than afraid.

Author: Caryl Chessman | Subjects: Fear, Psychology | Behavior

History is shaped by two types of minds: one that sees things in new and creative ways, and without traditional limitations; and one that sees things in the same, limited ways, as countless others have done in the past.

Author: Jeff Blum | Subjects: Change, Concepts, Creativity and Innovation, History

You can buy people’s skills but not their hearts.
You can buy people’s time but not their loyalty.
The most valuable things must be earned.

Author: Shane Parrish | Source: Farnam Street | Subjects: Life & Society, Personal Improvement

Beauty matters because it swings open the doors of perception, and it is by seeing — by taking in what is there, incorporating it into our inner world — that we can begin to comprehend and connect, out of which the sense of belonging arises.

Author: Maria Popova | Source: The Marginalian (Brain Pickings) | Subjects: Beauty | Aesthetics, Concepts

The quality of attention we pay something or someone is the measure of our love.

Author: Maria Popova | Source: The Marginalian (Brain Pickings) | Subjects: Love, Psychology | Behavior, Relationships

Within your circle of competence, you operate with an advantage. As you approach the perimeter (the limitations of your knowledge), your advantage starts to reduce. As you cross the perimeter, not only does your advantage vanish, but it transfers to other people. Suddenly, you find yourself playing in an area where others have an edge.

Author: Shane Parrish | Source: Farnam Street | Subjects: Personal Improvement, Success / Failure

The best definition of intelligence — artificial or human — that I’ve found is goal-directed adaptive behavior.

Author: Daniel Hulme | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Education | Scholarship, Intelligence | Knowledge

The history of our species is the history of mistaking our labels and models of things for the things themselves.

Author: Maria Popova | Source: The Marginalian (Brain Pickings) | Subjects: Education | Scholarship, Thought | Inquiry, Thought Starters

It’s pretty horrifying to realize that at the end of our lives, one of our biggest regrets will almost certainly be that we wasted so much of our attention, that we cared about the wrong things. And yet very few of us live as though we’ve internalized that insight… Most of us live as though we think we’re going to live forever because that would … [ Read more ]

Author: Sean Illing | Source: Vox | Subjects: Life & Society, Personal Improvement, Productivity & Time Management

Naïve insistence on aggressive sustainability initiatives is perceived by consumers as hardship, by companies as lost market share, and by politicians as instability. The root cause of all parties’ insufficient action is their universal quest for a better life through growth. People seek higher standards of living; companies seek better returns; politicians seek power by promising prosperity.

These natural preferences ensure that nobody will sacrifice much … [ Read more ]

Author: Yossi Sheffi | Source: Management Business Review (MBR) | Subject: Environment | Sustainability

People want good jobs, affordable products, and a better life for their children right now, not sacrifice and deprivation in service of a hazy future.

Author: Yossi Sheffi | Source: Management Business Review (MBR) | Subjects: Consumerism, Economics | Economy, Life & Society, Material Possessions, Psychology | Behavior

The man who is aware of himself is henceforward independent; and he is never bored, and life is only too short, and he is steeped through and through with a profound yet temperate happiness. He alone lives, while other people, slaves of ceremony, let life slip past them in a kind of dream. Once conform, once do what other people do because they do it, … [ Read more ]

Author: Virginia Woolf | Source: The Marginalian (Brain Pickings) | Subjects: Happiness, Psychology | Behavior

Most people go through life using up a very, very small part of their potential. You could have a three-hundred-horsepower motor and get three hundred horsepower out of it or you can get a lot less. The people who I see function well are not the ones with the biggest “motors,” but the ones with the most efficient ones.

Author: Warren Buffett | Subjects: Personal Improvement, Success / Failure

A sign of character is the ability to learn from people you might not like.

Author: Gaurav Mishra | Source: LinkedIn | Subjects: Education | Scholarship, Personal Improvement

The challenge is how to live with the knowledge that what steers us one way or another, toward terror or tenderness, can be the faintest and most random ripple in the surface of consciousness.

Author: Maria Popova | Source: The Marginalian (Brain Pickings) | Subject: Psychology | Behavior

Scarcity shapes our choices and drives our actions. When something is scarce, it suddenly becomes valuable. We want it more because there is less. This principle underlies everything from the price of gold to the thrill of the hunt. Scarcity isn’t just about material things. It applies to time, opportunities, and ideas… The key to navigating scarcity is understanding its power, recognizing when it’s driving … [ Read more ]

Author: Shane Parrish | Source: Farnam Street | Subjects: Personal Improvement, Psychology | Behavior

Once you give up the principle of equality, you have given up the whole game. You have admitted the principle that people are unequal, and that some people are better than others. Once you have replaced the principle of equality with the idea that humans are unequal, you have stamped your approval on the idea of rulers and subjects. At that point, all you can … [ Read more ]

Author: Heather Cox Richardson | Subjects: Life & Society, Politics & Public Policy