Ways of Life
“He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.” Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols
Our life is more than the sum of our stories. ~ Anonymous
“There’s my life, why not, it is one, if you like, if you must, I don’t say no, there has to be one, it seems, once there is speech. No need of a story, a story is not compulsory, just a life. That’s the mistake I made, one of the mistakes, to have wanted a story for myself whereas life alone is enough.” ~ Samuel Beckett, Stories and Texts for Nothing, 1955
I discovered that I was living out of a formula. Anonymous
A Brechtian maxim: take your cue not from the good old things, but from the bad new ones. ~ Walter Benjamin, diary entries, 1938
"When you buy something cheap and bad, the best you're going to feel about it is when you buy it. When you buy something expensive and good, the worst you're going to feel about it is when you buy it." ~ Sasha Aickin
Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth. — Marcus Aurelius
The first principle is that you must not fool yourself—and you are the easiest person to fool. — Richard Feynman
If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe. — Carl Sagan
We suffer more often in imagination than in reality. — Seneca
Keep the company of those who seek the truth- run from those who have found it. ― Vaclav Havel
Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for. ― Epicurus
The man who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones. ― Confucius
Do not wish that all things will go well with you, but that you will go well with all things. — Epictetus
I cannot remember the books I’ve read any more than the meals I have eaten; even so, they have made me. — Ralph Waldo Emerson
Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one. — Marcus Aurelius
Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and right-doing, there is a field. I'll meet you there. ― Rumi
We do not rise to the level of our expectations. We fall to the level of our training. — Archilochus
Don’t just say you have read books. Show that through them you have learned to think better, to be a more discriminating and reflective person. Books are the training weights of the mind. They are very helpful, but it would be a bad mistake to suppose that one has made progress simply by having internalized their contents. — Epictetus
Don't complain about the snow on your neighbor's roof when your own doorstep is unclean. — Confucius
When you grow up, you tend to get told the world is the way that it is, and your life is just to live your life inside the world and try not to bash into the walls too much. But that's a very limited life. Life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact. And that is that everything around you that you call life, was made up by people that are no smarter than you. And you can change it. You can influence it. You can build your own things that other people can use. To shake off this erroneous notion that life is just there, and you're just gonna live in it, versus embrace it. Change it, improve it. Make your mark upon it. And once you learn that, you'll never be the same again. — Steve Jobs
They tried to bury us, they didn’t know we were seeds. ― Alexandra Boutopoulou
Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself. ― Rumi
Watch your thoughts, they become your words. Watch your words, they become your actions. Watch your actions, they become your habits. Watch your habits, they become your character. Watch your character, it becomes your destiny. — Lao Tzu
There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so. ― William Shakespeare
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat. — Theodore Roosevelt
Whilst the multitude of men degrade each other, and give currency to desponding doctrines, the scholar must be a bringer of hope and must reinforce man against himself. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson The Method of Nature (1841)
I would rather have questions that can't be answered than answers that can't be questioned. ~unknown source