2099 Quotations Found

Your conscience is the measure of the honesty of your selfishness. Listen to it carefully.

Author: Richard Bach | Subjects: Advice, Concepts, Ethics | Integrity | Morality, Personal Improvement, Psychology | Behavior, Wisdom

Every now and then say, “What the fuck.” “What the fuck” gives you freedom. Freedom brings opportunity. Opportunity makes your future.

Author: Curtis Armstrong | Subjects: Attitude, Concepts, Personal Improvement, Psychology | Behavior, Wisdom

One reason so few of us achieve what we truly want is that we never direct our focus; we never concentrate our power. Most people dabble their way through life, never deciding to master anything in particular.

Author: Tony Robbins | Subjects: Life & Society, Personal Improvement, Productivity & Time Management, Success / Failure

The nice part about being a pessimist is that you are constantly being either proven right or pleasantly surprised.

Author: George F. Will | Subjects: Attitude, Psychology | Behavior

Patriotism is when love of your own people comes first; nationalism, when hate for people other than your own comes first.

Author: Charles de Gaulle | Subject: Politics & Public Policy

Someone who hates one group will end up hating everyone – and, ultimately, hating himself or herself.

Author: Elie Wiesel | Subjects: Concepts, Love, Personal Improvement, Psychology | Behavior

The saccharine pleasure of self-righteousness is, upon even the most cursory reflection, incompatible with compassion — with the ability to consider another’s foibles and mistakes with the same generosity of interpretation, in the same breadth of context and character, one would consider one’s own.

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

I have always been mystified by the speed with which people condemn one another […] This seems to give them intense pleasure. Whenever I am tempted by this pleasure, I remember some impulse in myself that could have led me, granted certain circumstances, into the condemned position. This has caused me to distrust the part of myself that would relish self-righteousness.

Author: Anne Truitt | Source: The Marginalian (Brain Pickings) | Subjects: Personal Improvement, Psychology | Behavior, Tolerance

In general, one is only right when either wish or fear coincides with reality. If one recognizes this, one cannot, of course, get rid of one’s subjective feelings, but one can to some extent insulate them from one’s thinking and make predictions cold-bloodedly, by the book of arithmetic.

Author: George Orwell | Subjects: Concepts, Desires, Fear, Intelligence | Knowledge, Personal Improvement, Psychology | Behavior

We are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show that we were right. Intellectually, it is possible to carry on this process for an indefinite time: the only check on it is that sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually … [ Read more ]

Author: George Orwell | Subjects: Concepts, Intelligence | Knowledge, Psychology | Behavior, Thought | Inquiry

Don’t fall in love with someone who says the right things. Fall in love with someone who does the right things.

Author: Unknown | Subjects: Concepts, Love, Personal Improvement, Relationships

As Orwell knew, a people’s memory sets the measure of its political freedom.

Author: Wilson Carey McWilliams | Subjects: Concepts, Freedom | Liberty, Politics & Public Policy

It’s easy for age to misremember the passions of youth, to muffle the grief of the past. It’s even easier for age to stand atop the soap box and proffer wise and useless advice.

Author: Kim McLarin | Subjects: Experience, Life & Society, Perception | Observation

Everyone you will ever meet knows something that you don’t.

Author: Bill Nye | Subjects: Concepts, Education | Scholarship, Intelligence | Knowledge, Learning, Personal Improvement

Ignorance more often begets confidence than knowledge.

Author: Charles Darwin | Subjects: Concepts, Intelligence | Knowledge

Life is not always a matter of holding good cards, but sometimes playing a poor hand well.

Author: Jack London | Subjects: Concepts, Personal Improvement, Wisdom

If you’re willing to suspend your disbelief, which is the main prerequisite for enjoying fantasy, then you have a compelling story that actually explains the world you live in. If you’re angry, conspiracy theories tell you why your anger is justified. If you feel like a victim, they tell you whom to blame. What could be better than that?

Author: Eliot Borenstein | Subjects: Psychology | Behavior, Thought | Inquiry

The next time someone offers you advice, ask yourself these two questions: Can I imagine the opposite ever making sense, and will I know if I’ve acted on it? If the answer to either one is “no,” you’re at grave risk of being led astray.

Author: Michael E. Raynor | Subjects: Advice, Personal Improvement

The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance – it is the illusion of knowledge.

Author: Daniel J. Boorstin | Subjects: Concepts, Intelligence | Knowledge

We write by the light of every book we ever read.

Author: Richard Peck | Subject: Reading | Writing