2098 Quotations Found

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

Author: Baltasar Gracián | Subject: Personal Improvement

Because our locus of choice is so narrow against the immensity of chance, nothing haunts human life more than the consequences of our choices, nothing pains more than the wistful wish to have chosen more wisely and more courageously — the chance untaken, the love unleapt, the unkind word in the time for tenderness. Regret — the fossilized fangs of should have sunk into the … [ Read more ]

Author: Maria Popova | Source: The Marginalian (Brain Pickings) | Subjects: Concepts, Life & Society, Pain & Suffering, Personal Improvement, Psychology | Behavior

At the end of my life, I know I won’t be wishing I’d held more back, been less effusive, more often stood on ceremony, forgiven less, spent more days oblivious to the secret wishes and fears of the people around me.

Author: George Saunders | Source: The Marginalian (Brain Pickings) | Subjects: Happiness, Life & Society, Personal Improvement, Psychology | Behavior

There is, therefore, no mightier spell against unhappiness than moving through the present in a way that preempts regret in the future — with integrity, with humility, with wholeheartedness.

Author: Maria Popova | Source: The Marginalian (Brain Pickings) | Subjects: Happiness, Life & Society, Personal Improvement, Psychology | Behavior

The author David Brooks … notes in his recent book, How to Know a Person … that a lot of people are “Diminishers,” self-involved to the point that others feel small and unseen. Such Diminishers do this by speaking primarily about themselves—something that, studies show, most people do often—and by failing to ask questions. Brooks contrasts Diminishers with “Illuminators,” who are persistently curious about others, … [ Read more ]

Authors: Arthur C. Brooks, David Brooks | Source: The Atlantic | Subjects: Character, Psychology | Behavior

Fairness comprises outcomes (distributive justice) and process (procedural justice), and these are judged differently depending on a few predictable conditions.

Authors: Marco Bertini, Oded Koenigsberg | Source: Harvard Business Review (HBR) | Subjects: Concepts, Law | Legal, Life & Society, Sociology | Anthropology

Connectedness is a biological imperative, and at the top of the autonomic hierarchy is the ventral vagal pathway that supports feelings of safety and connection. The ventral vagus (sometimes called the “smart vagus” or “social vagus”) provides the neurobiological foundation for health, growth, and restoration. When the ventral vagus is active, our attention is toward connection. We seek opportunities for co-regulation. The ability to soothe … [ Read more ]

Author: Deb Dana | Source: The Marginalian (Brain Pickings) | Subjects: Personal Improvement, Psychology | Behavior, Relationships

If our earliest template of connection is marked by rupture and deficient co-regulation, our very notion of reciprocity may be warped, leading us to tolerate immense asymmetries of affection and attention, to mistake deeply imbalanced relationships for reciprocal.

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

l have come to think that care of the soul requires a high degree of resistance to the culture around us, simply because that culture is dedicated to values that have no concern for the soul.

Author: Thomas Merton | Subjects: Concepts, Culture, Life & Society, Personal Improvement, Soul

Motivated ignorance refers to willfully blinding oneself to facts. It’s choosing not to know. In many cases, for many people, knowing the truth is simply too costly, too psychologically painful, too threatening to their core identity. Nescience is therefore incentivized; people actively decide to remain in a state of ignorance. If they are presented with strong arguments against a position they hold, or compelling evidence … [ Read more ]

Author: Peter Wehner | Source: The Atlantic | Subjects: Education | Scholarship, Facts | Bias, Personal Improvement, Politics & Public Policy, Psychology | Behavior, Thought | Inquiry

Big ideas come from the unconscious. This is true in art, in science and in advertising. But your unconscious has to be well informed, or your idea will be irrelevant. Stuff your conscious mind with information, then unhook your rational thought process. You can help this process by going for a long walk, or taking a hot bath, or drinking half a pint of claret. … [ Read more ]

Author: David Ogilvy | Subjects: Concepts, Creativity and Innovation

Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared that the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance… In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what … [ Read more ]

Author: Neil Postman | Subjects: Communication, Concepts, Life & Society, Politics & Public Policy, Psychology | Behavior, Truth | Right | Wrong

If you do not feel aligned with the worldview (values and beliefs) of your parents or the community in which you were raised, you will begin to search for a new identity when you reach the individuating stage of development, one that is more in alignment with who you truly are. This can present many challenges to how you relate to your parents, your friends … [ Read more ]

Author: Richard Barrett | Subjects: Life & Society, Personal Improvement, Psychology | Behavior

Every human being grows in stages of psychological development, operates at levels of consciousness and lives inside a worldview.

Author: Richard Barrett | Subjects: Life & Society, Psychology | Behavior

There’s a popular saying, “Whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” That’s not true. Sometimes it leaves you broken, battered, scarred. But, healing can make you stronger than you were before. or, at least, strong in a different way. And, if it doesn’t, it may just mean that you haven’t finished healing.

Author: Jeff Blum | Subjects: Concepts, Experience, Life & Society, Pain & Suffering, Personal Improvement, Psychology | Behavior

Constant lying is not aimed at making the people believe a lie, but at ensuring that no one believes anything anymore. A people that can no longer distinguish between truth and lies cannot distinguish between right and wrong. And such a people, deprived of the power to think and judge, is, without knowing and willing it, completely subjected to the rule of lies. With such … [ Read more ]

Author: Hannah Arendt | Subjects: Communication, Concepts, Good & Evil, Politics & Public Policy

Pattern recognition is why our brains are amazing… Our brains look for patterns to simplify decision making. It can also mean we look for patterns when there may not be one for a particular issue. Alternatively, we may encounter a pattern and draw probable but incorrect conclusions. This explains why we buy into conspiracy theories or walk around our living room looking for our phone … [ Read more ]

Author: Elspeth Kirkman | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Education | Scholarship, Personal Improvement, Psychology | Behavior, Thought | Inquiry

Principles are good and worth the effort only when they develop into deeds.

Author: Vincent van Gogh | Subjects: Ethics | Integrity | Morality, Personal Improvement

Denial stops us from listening… But denial lies. It protects us from the potency of a truth we cannot yet bear to accept. It takes our hands and leads us to places of comfort. Denial flourishes in the familiar. It seduces us with our own desires and cleverly constructs walls around us to keep us safe.

Author: Terry Tempest Williams | Source: The Marginalian (Brain Pickings) | Subjects: Concepts, Education | Scholarship, Pain & Suffering, Personal Improvement, Psychology | Behavior, Thought | Inquiry

I am not sure what is more difficult — the heartache of enduring a change made against your will and without your consent, which is the foundation of all loss, or the inner turmoil of having to make a necessary change yourself, breaking the momentum of patterns propelled by a lifetime’s motive force, which in turn presupposes the loss of a familiar way of being, … [ Read more ]

Author: Maria Popova | Source: The Marginalian (Brain Pickings) | Subjects: Change, Concepts, Life & Society, Psychology | Behavior