For the uncontrolled there is no wisdom, nor for the uncontrolled is there the power of concentration; and for him without concentration there is no peace. And for the unpeaceful, how can there be happiness?
Author: Bhagavad Gita | Subjects: Happiness, Personal Improvement, Psychology | Behavior
As the social scientist and Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl noted in his writings, we are motivated not so much by money or material objects as by a fundamental need for meaning in our lives, which may come from family, religion, our vocation or something else that acts as the modal force of who we are as individuals.
Author: Claudine Gartenberg | Source: IESE Insight | Subjects: Concepts, Meaning, Motivation, Psychology | Behavior
We create fear or make fear go away depending on what story we tell ourselves.
Author: Roger Martin | Source: YouTube | Subjects: Fear, Personal Improvement, Psychology | Behavior
A man is not old as long as he is seeking something.
Author: Jean Rostand | Subjects: Insight, Life & Society
The sloppy and fatuous nature of American good will can never be relied upon to deal with hard problems.
Author: James Baldwin | Subjects: America, International
Nothing other people do is because of you. It is because of themselves. All people live in their own dream, in their own mind; they are in a completely different world from the one we live in. When we take something personally, we make the assumption that they know what is in our world, and we try to impose our world on their world.
Author: Don Miguel Ruiz | Subjects: Psychology | Behavior, Relationships
Such is our proclivity for error and our vulnerability to reversals of fortune, we are all on the verge of needing someone to come to our imaginative aid. And therefore, if for no other reason, we have a duty to remain constant providers of generous interpretations of the lives of others. We must be kind in the sense not only of being touched by the … [ Read more ]
Author: Alain de Botton | Source: The Marginalian (Brain Pickings) | Subjects: Personal Improvement, Relationships
Even when they do not know any of the details, generous onlookers must make a stab at picturing the overall structure of what might have happened to the wretched being before them. They must guess that there will be sorrow and regret beneath the furious rantings, or a sense of intolerable vulnerability behind the pomposity and snobbishness. They must intimate that early trauma and let-down … [ Read more ]
Author: Alain de Botton | Source: The Marginalian (Brain Pickings) | Subjects: Psychology | Behavior, Relationships
One of the most damning paradoxes of our condition is that, again and again, we withhold from others the loving sympathy and empathic understanding we demand for ourselves. When we lose the reins of our own character, when we lash out or sulk or act from a small dark place, we hasten to rationalize our actions as situational — we were too tired, too triggered, … [ Read more ]
Author: Maria Popova | Source: The Marginalian (Brain Pickings) | Subjects: Psychology | Behavior, Relationships
Never judge yourself by the standards of the owner of the boot presently on your neck.
Author: Ta-Nehisi Coates | Subjects: Concepts, Freedom | Liberty, Life & Society, Personal Improvement
I was once told that every person I meet will teach me either what I want to be like or what I don’t want to be like. Every person is a lesson and I am a lesson to every person.
Author: Cindy Tucker | Subjects: Education | Scholarship, Personal Improvement
In much wisdom there is much grief, and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow.
Author: Andrei Tarkovsky | Subjects: Concepts, Insight, Life & Society, Pain & Suffering, Wisdom
Worshiping at the altar of the individual ignores the important role of the collective.
Author: Jeff Blum | Subjects: Life & Society, Politics & Public Policy
I find that a lot of anti-socialist sentiment boils down to a basic belief that people are lazy and won’t do good in the world or work hard unless they are suffering. I believe the opposite. I think most people would do amazing things if they weren’t in dire straits constantly.
Author: Jessica Grace | Subjects: Economics | Economy, Politics & Public Policy
Only a small part of the doings in [the world] are done for comfort or fun. The rest is just showing off.
Author: Laura Riding | Subjects: Action | Accomplishment, Psychology | Behavior
Knowledge and ability are tools, not things to show off.
Author: Haruki Murakami | Subjects: Ability | Skill, Concepts, Intelligence | Knowledge, Personal Improvement, Psychology | Behavior
History is not what happened, but what survives the shipwrecks of judgment and chance.
Author: Maria Popova | Source: The Marginalian (Brain Pickings) | Subject: History
Even if we act to erase material poverty, there is another greater task, it is to confront the poverty of satisfaction – purpose and dignity – that afflicts us all. Too much and for too long, we seemed to have surrendered personal excellence and community values in the mere accumulation of material things. Our Gross National Product, now, is over $800 billion dollars a year, … [ Read more ]
Author: Robert F. Kennedy | Subjects: Economics | Economy, Life & Society, Material Possessions, Politics & Public Policy
The person who says he knows what he thinks but cannot express it usually does not know what he thinks.
Author: Mortimer Adler | Source: Farnam Street | Subjects: Concepts, Education | Scholarship, Intelligence | Knowledge, Personal Improvement, Thought | Inquiry
When you write out an idea from start to finish in simple language that a child can understand (tip: use only the most common words), you force yourself to understand the concept at a deeper level and simplify relationships and connections between ideas. If you struggle, you have a clear understanding of where you have some gaps. That tension is good–it heralds an opportunity to … [ Read more ]
Author: Shane Parrish | Source: Farnam Street | Subjects: Concepts, Education | Scholarship, Intelligence | Knowledge, Personal Improvement