2098 Quotations Found

If you can, meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same.

Author: Rudyard Kipling | Subject: Personal Improvement

But with some personal experiences that lead you away into a cave all by yourself, you must eventually come to a side tunnel or something that opens on a truth that concerns not just yourself but everyone. And with that kind of experience at least the individual is rewarded for his suffering.

Author: Kenzaburo Oe | Subject: Life & Society

A wise man once said that all human activity is a form of play. And the highest form of play is the search for Truth, Beauty and Love. What more is needed? Should there be a ‘meaning’ as well, that will be a bonus? If we waste time looking for life’s meaning, we may have no time to live — or to play.

Author: Arthur C. Clarke | Subject: Life & Society

Jealousy means someone else has something that you want. Wallow in it for a few minutes, and then realize that someone else’s good fortune isn’t your misfortune. Behind jealousy is “I’m not getting what I deserve.” Sadly, that might be true. Welcome to reality—life isn’t fair.

Author: Stever Robbins | Source: HBS Working Knowledge | Subjects: Personal Improvement, Psychology | Behavior

The secret of a full life is to live and relate to others as if they might not be there tomorrow, as if you might not be there tomorrow. It eliminates the vice of procrastination, the sin of postponement, failed communications, failed communions. This thought has made me more and more attentive to all encounters, meetings, introductions, which might contain the seed of depth that … [ Read more ]

Author: Anaïs Nin | Source: The Marginalian (Brain Pickings) | Subjects: Happiness, Personal Improvement, Psychology | Behavior

The President is merely the most important among a large number of public servants. He should be supported or opposed exactly to the degree which is warranted by his good conduct or bad conduct, his efficiency or inefficiency in rendering loyal, able, and disinterested service to the Nation as a whole. Therefore it is absolutely necessary that there should be full liberty to tell the … [ Read more ]

Author: Theodore Roosevelt | Subjects: America, International, Politics & Public Policy

But from what I’ve seen it’s the woman who pays most for the dream of security and belonging. So, for some there must not be any charge at all – like it comes without effort, like breathing. Lord help us if we don’t fit that mold – especially when we’re all so willing to buy in every chance we get, suckers for the tender, cozy … [ Read more ]

Author: Ruby in Paradise | Subjects: Concepts, Feminism, Life & Society

A dream is an answer to a question we haven’t learned how to ask.

Author: The X-Files | Subjects: Insight, Life & Society

Coincidences are God’s way of remaining anonymous.

Author: Doris Lessing | Subject: Religion

What we do with our days so shall we do with our lives.

Author: Annie Dillard | Subject: Personal Improvement

There are really only two questions in life: Who are you? and What do you want?

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

Innovation springs from many sources…
Necessity: the mother of invention.
Experience: the wisdom to recognize what must be changed.
Inexperience: the fearlessness to follow instincts.
Intelligence: the wits to make things happen.
Drive: the need to do it first and to do it best.
Persistence: the strength to see it through.

Author: Unknown | Subjects: Concepts, Creativity and Innovation, Personal Improvement

[M]ost people implicitly assume that their “map” of reality is supposed to be already correct. If they have to make any changes to it, that’s a sign that they messed up somewhere along the way. Scouts have the opposite assumption. We all start out with wildly incorrect maps, and over time, as we get more information, we make them somewhat more accurate. Revising your map … [ Read more ]

Author: Julia Galef | Subjects: Life & Society, Personal Improvement

You can’t expect somebody who loves you to treat you less cruelly than he would treat himself.

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

Personality is composed of two fundamentally different types of traits: those of ‘character;’ and those of ‘temperament.’ Your character traits stem from your experiences. Your childhood games; your family’s interests and values; how people in your community express love and hate; what relatives and friends regard as courteous or perilous; how those around you worship; what they sing; when they laugh; how they make a … [ Read more ]

Author: Helen Fisher | Source: The Marginalian (Brain Pickings) | Subject: Psychology | Behavior

Science is an inherent contradiction — systematic wonder — applied to the natural world. In its mundane form, the methodical instinct prevails and the result, an orderly procession of papers, advances the perimeter of knowledge, step by laborious step. Great scientific minds partake of that daily discipline and can also suspend it, yielding to the sheer love of allowing the mental engine to spin free. … [ Read more ]

Authors: Fari Amini, Richard Lannon, Thomas Lewis | Source: The Marginalian (Brain Pickings) | Subject: Math & Science

Who we are and who we become depends, in part, on whom we love.

Authors: Fari Amini, Richard Lannon, Thomas Lewis | Source: The Marginalian (Brain Pickings) | Subjects: Concepts, Love, Personal Improvement, Psychology | Behavior

Describing something with accuracy forces you to learn more about it. Accurate description requires the following:

• Observation
• Curiosity about what you are witnessing
• Suspending assumptions about cause and effect

It can be difficult to stick with describing something completely and accurately. It’s hard to overcome the tendency to draw conclusions based on partial information or to leave assumptions unexplored.

Author: Shane Parrish | Source: Farnam Street | Subjects: Education | Scholarship, Intelligence | Knowledge, Thought | Inquiry

“Intelligence”, like “merit,” is not a natural but a constructed measure, the content of which will vary with the various goals one has decided to embrace.

Author: Stanley Fish | Subjects: Education | Scholarship, Intelligence | Knowledge

Men come to college with a good deal of self-confidence, but to measure ourselves with others shows very soon our mediocrity. We come, by training, to know that we know nothing.

Author: Unknown | Subject: Education | Scholarship