Blog — Quotes

“Try harder.” They tell you to overcome your fear, develop better habits, take it personally, be vulnerable, and be sure to post it all online. The advice implies that if something wasn’t wrong with your character, you’d have no trouble succeeding. But going faster is useless if you’re running in the wrong direction. Strategy is a commitment to seeing the race course before we begin. Your effort is up to you. Surfing is better when we see and understand the waves.

Freedom is what you do with what's been done to you.

We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us.

A bad system will beat a good person every time.

Philosophy is no trick to catch the public; it is not devised for show. It is a matter, not of words, but of facts. It is not pursued in order that the day may yield some amusement before it is spent, or that our leisure may be relieved of a tedium that irks us. It moulds and constructs the soul; it orders our life, guides our conduct, shows us what we should do and what we should leave undone; it sits at the helm and directs our course as we waver amid uncertainties. Without it, no one can live fearlessly or in peace of mind. Countless things that happen every hour call for advice; and such advice is to be sought in philosophy.

To be like the rock that the waves keep crashing over. It stands unmoved and the raging of the sea falls still around it.

The golden rule—treat others as you would treat yourself.
The internal golden rule—treat yourself as others should have treated you.

Without reason, and we become a slave to our circumstances.

But without emotion, there is no reason to have reason.

'Be kinder to yourself' is a lifeline for a perfectionist who is already tearing himself up, but it's a permission slip for the man who already lets himself off the hook everyday.

we do not suddenly fall on death, but advance towards it by slight degrees; we die every day. For every day a little of our life is taken from us; even when we are growing, our life is on the wane. We lose our childhood, then our boyhood, and then our youth. Counting even yesterday, all past time is lost time; the very day which we are now spending is shared between ourselves and death. It is not the last drop that empties the water-clock, but all that which previously has flowed out; similarly, the final hour when we cease to exist does not of itself bring death; it merely of itself completes the death-process. We reach death at that moment, but we have been a long time on the way.

I again saw under the sun that the race is not to the swift and the battle is not to the warriors, and neither is bread to the wise nor wealth to the discerning, nor favor to the skillful; for time and chance overtake them all.

Food does no good and is not assimilated into the body if it leaves the stomach as soon as it is eaten; nothing hinders a cure so much as frequent change of medicine; no wound will heal when one salve is tried after another; a plant which is often moved can never grow strong. There is nothing so efficacious that it can be helpful while it is being shifted about. And in reading of many books is distraction. Accordingly, since you cannot read all the books which you may possess, it is enough to possess only as many books as you can read.

There are no solutions. There are only trade-offs.

Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all.

In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts; they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty.

He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.

Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.

To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.

If you do not know what port you are sailing to, no wind is favorable.

Time is too slow for those who wait,
too swift for those who fear,
too long for those who grieve,
too short for those who rejoice,
but for those who love,
time is eternity.

The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing.

Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.

You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.

Ultimately, happiness comes down to choosing between the discomfort of becoming aware of your mental afflictions and the discomfort of being ruled by them.

Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.