2098 Quotations Found

Taking offense is like grabbing a burning ember to hurl at the offender—you’re the one who’s most
likely to get burned.

Subject: Personal Improvement

It is only in these bonds that our individuality has a use and a worth; it is only to the people who know us, love us, and depend on us that we are indispensable as the persons we uniquely are… Separate from the relationships, there is nobody to be known.

Author: Wendell Berry | Source: The Marginalian (Brain Pickings) | Subjects: Individuality, Psychology | Behavior, Relationships

The problem, of course, is that we are not the authors of ourselves. That we are not is a religious perception, but it is also a biological and a social one. Each of us has had many authors, and each of us is engaged, for better or worse, in that same authorship. We could say that the human race is a great coauthorship in which … [ Read more ]

Author: Wendell Berry | Source: The Marginalian (Brain Pickings) | Subjects: Concepts, Individuality, Life & Society, Meaning, Psychology | Behavior

What we call silence is just the limit of our hearing.

Author: Doris Mitsch | Source: TED | Subjects: Concepts, Senses

One of the most useful things you can ever learn in your life is to figure out how to channel your negative emotions constructively.

Author: Mark Manson | Subject: Personal Improvement

Love can harm as much as it heals. It’s an amplifier. It makes a good relationship better and a bad relationship much worse.

Author: Mark Manson | Subjects: Love, Psychology | Behavior, Relationships

Confidence does not come from an expectation of success. It comes from a comfort with failure.

Author: Mark Manson | Subjects: Personal Improvement, Psychology | Behavior, Success / Failure

If you don’t decide who you are, other people will decide for you.

Author: Mark Manson | Subject: Personal Improvement

The most valuable things in life compound over a long period of time. I’m talking about health, wealth, knowledge, confidence, relationships. These things will frustrate you when you’re young because they are slow. But if you start building them from a young age and you don’t stop, by the time you’re in your 30s and 40s you will have an incredible life.

Author: Mark Manson | Subjects: Life & Society, Personal Improvement

Your relationship with others is a direct reflection of your relationship with yourself. Get right with yourself, get right with the world.

Author: Mark Manson | Subjects: Personal Improvement, Psychology | Behavior, Relationships

Fundamental questions about the human condition are not beside the point in dire political times; they are the point. How can we think straight amidst cynicism and mendacity? What is there left to love, to cherish, to fight for? How can we act to best secure it? What fences and bridges do we need to build to protect freedom and which walls do we need … [ Read more ]

Author: Lyndsey Stonebridge | Source: The Marginalian (Brain Pickings) | Subject: Politics & Public Policy

Our investment in reading changes the book because the book has changed us. … If books are merely a means of transferring information, then perhaps, yes, a book is a waste of time. If a summary of its thesis and key points could be presented in a brief article or Substack post, why not just save the hours and read the Substack post? All the … [ Read more ]

Author: Joel Miller | Subjects: Education | Scholarship, Reading | Writing

I kept my idea a secret from anyone who could not directly help to move it forward. That was my gut instinct at the time, but it’s now one of the best pieces of advice I have to give. Ideas are the most vulnerable at the moment you have them; that’s also the time people are most inclined to run around seeking validation from everyone … [ Read more ]

Author: Sarah Blakely | Source: Farnam Street | Subjects: Concepts, Creativity and Innovation

People are always looking for happiness at some future time and in some new thing, or some new set of circumstances, in possession of which they someday expect to find themselves. But the fact is, if happiness is not found now, where we are, and as we are, there is little chance of it ever being found. There is a great deal more happiness around … [ Read more ]

Author: Thomas Mitchell | Source: Farnam Street | Subjects: Happiness, Personal Improvement, Psychology | Behavior

Most geniuses—especially those who lead others—prosper not by deconstructing intricate complexities but by exploiting unrecognized simplicities.

Author: Andy Benoit | Source: Farnam Street | Subjects: Concepts, Creativity and Innovation, Education | Scholarship, Intelligence | Knowledge, Personal Improvement

Why are so many people pessimistic? I think there are three reasons why. One is that most of what progress is about is about what does not happen. It’s about all the things that could have happened that didn’t happen today. It’s about the two-year-old child who did not die of smallpox. It’s about the family farmers whose year of surplus food was not stolen … [ Read more ]

Author: Kevin Kelly | Source: TED | Subjects: Personal Improvement, Psychology | Behavior

While we naturally understand that writing is a good way to share ideas with others, we under-appreciate just how much good writing helps us think about an idea ourselves. Writing is not only a means of communication, it enables us to practice reasoning.

Author: Shane Parrish | Source: Farnam Street | Subjects: Education | Scholarship, Reading | Writing, Thought | Inquiry

Once you truly understand that you’re guaranteed to miss out on almost every experience the world has to offer, the fact that there are so many you still haven’t experienced stops feeling like a problem. Letting go of all the things you haven’t done, but imagine you could do, lets you focus more intensely on the things you are doing.

Authors: James Surowiecki, Oliver Burkeman | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Personal Improvement, Productivity & Time Management

We live in a culture, and an economy, that seems practically designed to get us to pay attention to things we don’t especially value.

Author: James Surowiecki | Source: strategy+business | Subject: Articles & Links

[Oliver Burkeman recommends] abandoning the delusion that time is something you can manage successfully. Trying to live as efficiently as possible, Burkeman argues, is both futile and self-defeating. There is always more to do, always another small task to complete, and, paradoxically, the better we get at completing tasks, the faster new ones arise. Obsessing over time management therefore means spending your time trying, and … [ Read more ]

Authors: James Surowiecki, Oliver Burkeman | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Life & Society, Personal Improvement, Productivity & Time Management