Arise And Build Quotes

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The Lake Isle of Innisfree I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree, And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made; Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee, And live alone in the bee-loud glade. And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow, Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings; There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow, And evening full of the linnet’s wings. I will arise and go now, for always night and day I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore; While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey, I hear it in the deep heart’s core.
W.B. Yeats (The Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats)
I am the daughter of Earth and Water, And the nursling of the Sky; I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores; I change, but I cannot die. For after the rain when with never a stain The pavilion of Heaven is bare, And the winds and sunbeams with their convex gleams Build up the blue dome of air, I silently laugh at my own cenotaph, And out of the caverns of rain, Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb, I arise and unbuild it again.
Percy Bysshe Shelley
First, anyone who seriously intends to become a philosopher must "once in his life" withdraw into himself and attempt, within himself, to overthrow and build anew all the sciences that, up to then, he has been accepting. Philosophy wisdom (sagesse) is the philosophizer's quite personal affair. It must arise as His wisdom, as his self-acquired knowledge tending toward universality, a knowledge for which he can answer from the beginning, and at each step, by virtue of his own absolute insights.
Edmund Husserl (Cartesian Meditations: An Introduction to Phenomenology)
For me, the times I always regret are missed opportunities to say farewell to good people, to wish them long life and say to them in all sincerity, "You build and do not destroy; you sow goodwill and reap it; smiles bloom in the wake of your passing, and I will keep your kindness in trust and share it as occasion arises, so that your life will be a quenching draught of calm in a land of drought and stress." Too often I never get to say that when it should be said. Instead, I leave them with the equivalent of a "Later, dude!" only to discover there would be no later for us.
Kevin Hearne (Hammered (The Iron Druid Chronicles, #3))
To defeat Fortune, men must anticipate such evils before they arise, and take prudent steps to avoid them. When the waters have already risen, it is too late to build dikes and embankments.
Niccolò Machiavelli (The Prince)
Whether we’re seeking inner peace or global peace or a combination of the two, the way to experience it is to build on the foundation of unconditional openness to all that arises. Peace isn’t an experience free of challenges, free of rough and smooth, it’s an experience that’s expansive enough to include all that arises without feeling threatened.
Pema Chödrön (Taking the Leap: Freeing Ourselves from Old Habits and Fears)
Suppose you have placed “doubt” at the foundation of your interpersonal relations. That you live your life doubting other people—doubting your friends and even your family and those you love. What sort of relationship could possibly arise from that? The other person will detect the doubt in your eyes in an instant. He or she will have an instinctive understanding that “this person does not have confidence in me.” Do you think one would be able to build some kind of positive relationship from that point? It is precisely because we lay a foundation of unconditional confidence that it is possible for us to build a deep relationship.
Ichiro Kishimi (The Courage to Be Disliked: The Japanese Phenomenon That Shows You How to Change Your Life and Achieve Real Happiness)
I am firmly convinced to-day that, generally speaking, it is in youth that men lay the essential groundwork of their creative thought, wherever that creative thought exists. I make a distinction between the wisdom of age- which can only arise from the greater profundity and foresight that are based on the experiences of a long life- and the creative genius of youth, which blossoms out in thoughts and ideas with inexhaustible fertility, without being able to put these into practice immediately, because of their very superabundance. These furnish the building materials and plans for the future; and it is from them that age takes the stones and builds the edifice, unless the so-called wisdom of the years may have smothered the creative genius of youth.
Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)
Rather than going after these walls and barriers with a sledgehammer, we pay attention to them. With gentleness and honesty, we move closer to those walls. We touch them, and smell them and get to know them well. We become familiar with the strategies and beliefs we use to build these walls: what are the stories we tell ourselves? What repels me and what attracts me? Without calling what we see right or wrong, we simply look as objectively as we can. We can observe ourselves with humor, not getting overly serious, moralistic or uptight about the investigation. Year after year, we train in remaining open and receptive to whatever arises. Slowly, very slowly, the cracks in the walls seem to widen and, as if by magic, bodhichitta is able to flow freely.
Pema Chödrön (The Places That Scare You: A Guide to Fearlessness in Difficult Times)
Lives interweave with other lives, and out of the tapestry arise hints at answers to questions that raze to the bone of life: What are the building blocks of character, of contentment, of lasting achievement? How does a person come into self-possession and sovereignty of mind against the tide of convention and unreasoning collectivism? Does genius suffice for happiness, does distinction, does love?
Maria Popova (Figuring)
You build and do not destroy; you sow goodwill and reap it; smiles bloom in the wake of your passing, and I will keep your kindness in trust and share it as occasion arises, so that your life will be a quenching draught of calm in a land of drought and stress.
Kevin Hearne (Hammered (The Iron Druid Chronicles, #3))
Take the Cup, Sophia Collins,"she said, and the room was breathlessly silent. The Council chamber was not full, but the row Tessa sat at the end was:Gideon and Gabriel, Cecily and Henry, and her and Will, all leaning forward eagerly, waiting for Sophie to Ascend. At each end of the dais stood a Silent Brother, their heads bent, their parchment robes looking as if they had been carved out of marble. Charlotte lowered the Cup, and held it out to Sophie, who took it carefully. "Do you swear, Sophia Collins, to forsake the mundane world and follow the path of the Shadowhunter? Will you take into yourself the blood of the Angel Raziel and honor that blood? Do you swear to serve the Clave, to follow the Law as set forth by the Covernant, and to obey the word of the Council? Will you defend that which is human and mortal, knowing that for your service there will be no recompense and no thanks but honor?"I swear,"said Sophie, her voice very steady. "Can you be a shield for the weak, a light in the dark, a truth among falsehoods, a tower in the flood, an eye to see when all others are blind?" I can." "And when you are dead, will you give up your body to the Nephilim to be burned, that your ashes may be used to build the City of Bones?" "I will." "The drink,"said Charlotte. Tessa heard Gideon draw in his breath. This was the dangerous part of the ritual. This was the part that would kill the untrained and unworthy. Sophie bent her dark head and set the Cup to her lips. Tessa sat forward, her chest tight with aprehension. She felt Will's hand slide over hers, a warm, comforting weight. Sophie's throat moved as she swallowed. The circle that surrounded her and Charlotte flared up once with a cold, blue-white light, obscuring them both. When it faded, Tessa was left blinking stars from her eyes as the light dwindled. She blinked hastily, and saw Sophie hold up the Cup. there was a glow about the Cup she held as she handed it back to Charlotte, who smiled broadly. "You are Nehilim now,"she said. "I name you Sophia Shadowhunter, of the blood of Jonathan Shadowhunter, child of the Nehilim. Arise, Sophia.
Cassandra Clare (Clockwork Princess (The Infernal Devices, #3))
These roles can be played effectively or ineffectively. Problems arise when activists don't play their roles effectively, or when they devalue the roles other activists play.
Melanie Joy (Strategic Action for Animals: A Handbook on Strategic Movement Building, Organizing, and Activism for Animal Liberation)
Fears and expectations that date back to earlier experiences of dependency, but that didn't arise during courtship or dating, are activated as commitment to the relationship increases. As a result, partners start to anticipate the worst, not the best from their relationship.
Stan Tatkin (Wired for Love: How Understanding Your Partner's Brain and Attachment Style Can Help You Defuse Conflict and Build a Secure Relationship)
For a practitioner of love and compassion, an enemy is one of the most important teachers. Without an enemy you cannot practice tolerance, and without tolerance you cannon build a sound basis of compassion. So in order to practice compassion, you should have an enemy. When you face your enemy who is going to hurt you, that is the real time to practice tolerance. Therefore, an enemy is the cause of the practice of tolerance; tolerance is the effect or result of an enemy. So those are cause and effect. As is said, "Once something has the relationship of arising from that thing, one cannot consider that thing from which it arises as a harmer; rather it assists the production of the effect.
Śāntideva
In the great mirror of consciousness, images arise and disappear and only memory gives them continuity. And memory is material - destructible, perishable, transient. On such flimsy foundations we build a sense of personal existence - vague, intermittent, dreamlike. This vague persuasion, “I am so-and-so,” obscures the changeless state of pure awareness and makes us believe that we are born to suffer and to die.
Nisargadatta Maharaj (I Am That: Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj)
So how do you know whether a person has integrity? After all, like the foundation of a house, it may not be visible at first glance. It may not show up when you have pizza together or sit around a boardroom table for a meeting, but sooner or later, a situation will arise that will tell you whether someone operates with integrity or not.
Van Moody (The People Factor: How Building Great Relationships and Ending Bad Ones Unlocks Your God-Given Purpose)
I wish you well, explorer, but I wonder: Does the same fate that befell me await you? I can only imagine that it must, that the tendency toward equilibrium is not a trait peculiar to our universe but inherent in all universes. Perhaps that is just a limitation of my thinking, and your people have discovered a source of pressure that is truly eternal. But my speculations are fanciful enough already. I will assume that one day your thoughts too will cease, although I cannot fathom how far in the future that might be. Your lives will end just as ours did, just as everyone’s must. No matter how long it takes, eventually equilibrium will be reached. I hope you are not saddened by that awareness. I hope that your expedition was more than a search for other universes to use as reservoirs. I hope that you were motivated by a desire for knowledge, a yearning to see what can arise from a universe’s exhalation. Because even if a universe’s life span is calculable, the variety of life that is generated within it is not. The buildings we have erected, the art and music and verse we have composed, the very lives we’ve led: none of them could have been predicted, because none of them was inevitable. Our universe might have slid into equilibrium emitting nothing more than a quiet hiss. The fact that it spawned such plenitude is a miracle, one that is matched only by your universe giving rise to you.
Ted Chiang (Exhalation)
Emptiness does not mean nothingness but the availability of space that allows a building to be rebuilt, out of true emptiness arises wondrous existence
Hsing Yun
a “The God of heaven will make us prosper, and we his servants will arise and build, but you have no portion or right or claim [1] in Jerusalem.
Anonymous (Holy Bible: English Standard Version (ESV))
It was a good thing, we told ourselves; the eyes grow weary with looking at new things; sleeping late, we said, has its genuine therapeutic value; we would be better for it, would be able to work more effectively. We have little doubt that all this was true, but we wish we could build as good a rationalization every time we are lazy. For in some beastly way this fine laziness has got itself a bad name. It is easy to see how it might have come into disrepute, if the result of laziness were hunger. But it rarely is. Hunger makes laziness impossible. It has even become sinful to be lazy. We wonder why. One could argue, particularly if one had a gift for laziness, that it is relaxation pregnant of activity, a sense of rest from which directed effort may arise, whereas most busy-ness is merely a kind of nervous tic. ... How can such a process have become a shame and a sin? Only in laziness can one achieve a state of contemplation which is a balancing of values, a weighing of oneself against the world and the world against itself. A busy man cannot find time for such balancing. We do not think a lazy man can commit murders, nor great thefts, nor lead a mob. He would be more likely to think about it and laugh. And a nation of lazy contemplative men would be incapable of fighting a war unless their very laziness were attacked. Wars are the activities of busy-ness.
John Steinbeck (The Log from the Sea of Cortez)
relational mindfulness—stopping for a brief moment and centering ourselves. Observing, just as in all forms of mindfulness, the thoughts, feelings, impulses that arise—and choosing something different.
Terrence Real (Us: Getting Past You & Me to Build a More Loving Relationship)
... the brain's operations arise fundamentally and inescapably from raw associations. Just as amino acids can be called the building blocks of life, associations can be called the building blocks of thought.
Robert Cialdini (Pre-Suasion: A Revolutionary Way to Influence and Persuade)
And besides, in the matter of friendship, I have observed that the disappointment here arises chiefly, not from liking our friends too well, or thinking of them too highly, but rather from an over-estimate of their liking for and opinion of us; and that if we guard ourselves with sufficient scrupulousness of care from error in this direction, and can be content, and even happy to give more affection than we receive -- can make just comparison of circumstances, and be severely accurate in drawing inferences thence, and never let self-love blind our eyes -- I think we may manage to get through life with consistency and constancy, unembittered by that misanthropy which springs from revulsions of feeling. All this sounds a little metaphysical, but it is good sense of if you consider it. The moral of it is, that if we would build on a sure foundation in friendship, we must love our friends for their sakes rather than for our own; we must look at their truth to themselves, full as much as their truth to us. In the latter case, every wound to self-love would be a cause of coldness; in the former, only some painful change in the friend's character and disposition -- some fearful breach in his allegiance to his better self -- could alienate the heart.
Elizabeth Gaskell (The Life of Charlotte Brontë)
The essential difference between rich societies and poor societies does not stem from any greater effort the former devote to work, nor even from any greater technological knowledge the former hold. Instead it arises mainly from the fact that rich nations possess a more extensive network of capital goods wisely invested from an entrepreneurial standpoint. These goods consists of machines, tools, computers, buildings, semi-manufactured goods, software, etc., and they exist due to prior savings of the nation's citizens. In other words, comparatively rich societies possess more wealth because they have more time accumulated in the form of capital goods, which places them closer in time to the achievement of much more valuable goals.
Jesús Huerta de Soto
When the forces of extremism become so overwhelming that they depress the hope of the people, the prophetic voice and mission is to connect words and actions in ways that build restorative hope, so a Movement for restorative justice can arise.
William J. Barber II (Forward Together: A Moral Message for the Nation)
The caste system thrives on dissension and inequality, envy and false rivalries, that build up in a world of perceived scarcity. As people elbow for position, the greatest tensions arise between those adjacent to one another, up and down the ladder.
Isabel Wilkerson (Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents)
We fail to build slack because we focus on what must be done now and do not think enough about all the things that can arise in the future. [...] What should you do? Should you leave spaces open in your schedule...just in case something unexpected comes up...? In effect, yes. That's what you do when you allocate forty minutes to drive somewhere a half hour away...When you face scarcity, slack is a necessity.
Eldar Shafir (Scarcity: Why Having Too Little Means So Much)
The wise are not conspicuous in their actions  or given to much talking. When troubles arise, they are not irritated. They produce, but do not hoard; They act, but expect no praise; They build, but do not dwell therein. And because they do not dwell therein, They never depart.
Lao Tzu (Tao Te Ching)
Philosophy is not an occupation of a popular nature, nor is it pursued for the sake of self-advertisement. Its concern is not with words, but with facts. It is not carried on with the object of passing the day in an entertaining sort of way and taking the boredom out of leisure. It moulds and builds the personality, orders one’s life, regulates one’s conduct, shows one what one should do and what one should leave undone, sits at the helm and keeps one on the correct course as one is tossed about in perilous seas. Without it no one can lead a life free of fear or worry. Every hour of the day countless situations arise that call for advice, and for that advice we have to look to philosophy.
Seneca (Letters from a Stoic)
The world is so big, so complicated, so replete with marvels and surprises that it takes years for most people to begin to notice that it is, also, irretrievably broken. We call this period of research “childhood.” There follows a program of renewed inquiry, often involuntary, into the nature and effects of mortality, entropy, heartbreak, violence, failure, cowardice, duplicity, cruelty, and grief; the researcher learns their histories, and their bitter lessons, by heart. Along the way, he or she discovers that the world has been broken for as long as anyone can remember, and struggles to reconcile this fact with the ache of cosmic nostalgia that arises, from time to time, in the researcher’s heart: an intimation of vanished glory, of lost wholeness, a memory of the world unbroken. We call the moment at which this ache first arises “adolescence.” The feeling haunts people all their lives. Everyone, sooner or later, gets a thorough schooling in brokenness. The question becomes: What to do with the pieces? Some people hunker down atop the local pile of ruins and make do, Bedouin tending their goats in the shade of shattered giants. Others set about breaking what remains of the world into bits ever smaller and more jagged, kicking through the rubble like kids running through piles of leaves. And some people, passing among the scattered pieces of that great overturned jigsaw puzzle, start to pick up a piece here, a piece there, with a vague yet irresistible notion that perhaps something might be done about putting the thing back together again. Two difficulties with this latter scheme at once present themselves. First of all, we have only ever glimpsed, as if through half-closed lids, the picture on the lid of the jigsaw puzzle box. Second, no matter how diligent we have been about picking up pieces along the way, we will never have anywhere near enough of them to finish the job. The most we can hope to accomplish with our handful of salvaged bits—the bittersweet harvest of observation and experience—is to build a little world of our own. A scale model of that mysterious original, unbroken, half—remembered. Of course the worlds we build out of our store of fragments can be only approximations, partial and inaccurate. As representations of the vanished whole that haunts us, they must be accounted failures. And yet in that very failure, in their gaps and inaccuracies, they may yet be faithful maps, accurate scale models, of this beautiful and broken world. We call these scale models “works of art.
Michael Chabon (The Wes Anderson Collection)
Turn off your television. Open your windows. Find open spaces. Run to the ocean. 
 “The sea will speak to you if you become quiet enough.” There is magic in these mountains. There are spirits in these old tall pines. These are the places they wrote about. The places they sang for and explored. These are the places that notions arise from when the wind howls. Brothers and Sisters, you are wild and infinite. You are the wolves and the fish. You are these trees and these rivers. So when you sit, sit like a mountain. None of these places will last. These buildings will fail. These trees will fall. And these mountains? Even the mountains will change. So go easy Brothers and Sisters. Be kind. It is a long walk home.
The Infinite Spark of Being
Heresy arises as a pained outcry to liberate us from this strange, narrow pit, to raise us from the darkness of letters and platitudes to the light of thought and feeling. Such heresy eventually takes its stand in the centre of morality. It has a temporary legitimacy, for it must consume the filthy froth clinging to mindless faith. [...........] On the desolate ruins wrought by heresy, the sublime knowledge of God wil build her temple.
Daniel C. Matt (The Essential Kabbalah: The Heart of Jewish Mysticism)
When you're sad, everything sad builds up. The most painfully truthful thoughts arise, uninvited and unforgiving. The brain, a devoted soldier, always successful, somehow manages to rapidly search its host's darkness. There is no escape to what is next. First, all the buried thoughts you locked in a gloomy chest are released. Second, you begin crying over what you never wanted to admit. Suddenly, you begin to cry over things you did not even know actually deeply hurt you. And sometimes, the wet physicalization of your sorrow isn't enough. Instead, a violent madness stirs in your chest and your head is polluted with a red so angry, your jaw opens to fill the earth with a scream so rare you lose a little of yourself. Your roaring voice trails in pieces, like bullet fragments in flesh, to complete the song that is Loss.
Kristian Ventura (Cardiac Ablation)
We fail to build slack because we focus on what must be done now and do not think enough about all the things that can arise in the future. The present is imminently clear whereas future contingences are less pressing and harder to imagine. When the intangible future comes face to face with the palpable present, slack feels like a luxury.
Sendhil Mullainathan (Scarcity: Why Having Too Little Means So Much)
The fundamental error of socialism is anthropological in nature. Socialism considers the individual person simply as an element, a molecule within the social organism, so that the good of the individual is completely subordinated to the functioning of the socio-economic mechanism. Socialism likewise maintains that the good of the individual can be realized without reference to his free choice, to the unique and exclusive responsibility which he exercises in the face of good or evil. Man is thus reduced to a series of social relationships, and the concept of the person as the autonomous subject of moral decision disappears, the very subject whose decisions build the social order. From this mistaken conception of the person there arise both a distortion of law, which defines the sphere of the exercise of freedom, and an opposition to private property. A person who is deprived of something he can call “his own,” and of the possibility of earning a living through his own initiative, comes to depend on the social machine and on those who control it. This makes it much more difficult for him to recognize his dignity as a person, and hinders progress towards the building up of an authentic human community.
Pope John Paul II
In a passage penned for the Abbé Raynal’s Histoire philosophique des deux Indes, lines written shortly after the Revolution’s onset in 1776, Diderot, confident that they would succeed, urges the insurgents to remember in building their new world not to allow inequality of wealth to become too great. He admonished them to “fear a too unequal division of wealth resulting in a small number of opulent citizens and a multitude of citizens living in misery, from which there arises the arrogance of the one and the abasement of the other.”13
Jonathan I. Israel (A Revolution of the Mind: Radical Enlightenment and the Intellectual Origins of Modern Democracy)
Fear is the will's little baby. It arises with the possibility you will lose what you desire.
Shai Tubali (Indestructible You: Building a Self that Can't be Broken)
Arise my Sister! Awake my Sister! Start walking in the path of building your own identity!
Abhijit Naskar (The Bengal Tigress: A Treatise on Gender Equality (Humanism Series))
A handful of problems arise when you spend too much time thinking about your goals and not enough time designing your systems.
James Clear (Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones)
For most people, whenever possible, important habits should be scheduled for the morning. Mornings tend to unfold in a predictable way, and as the day goes on, more complications arise—
Gretchen Rubin (Better Than Before: What I Learned About Making and Breaking Habits--to Sleep More, Quit Sugar, Procrastinate Less, and Generally Build a Happier Life)
Today however, a new generation must arise that will take their works further. This generation must rely less on signs and wonders, but rely more on developing skills and building industries.
Sunday Adelaja
Goals are good for setting a direction, but systems are best for making progress. A handful of problems arise when you spend too much time thinking about your goals and not enough time designing your systems.
James Clear (Atomic Habits: An Easy and Proven Way to Build Good Habits and Break Bad Ones)
Believe this, young man," exclaimed Shelgrim, layinga thick powerful forefinger on the table to emphasize his words, "try to believe this - to begin with - that railroads build themselves. Where there is a demand sooner or later there will be a supply. Mr. Derrick, does he grow his wheat? The Wheat grows itself. What does he count for? Does he supply the force? What do I count for? Do I build the Railroad? You are dealing with forces, young man, when you speak of Wheat and the Railroads, not with men. There is the Wheat, the supply. It must be carried to feed the People. There is the demand. The Wheat is one force, the Railroad, another, and there is the law that governs them - supply and demand. Men have only little to do in the whole business. Complications may arise, conditions that bear hard on the individual - crush him maybe - but the Wheat will be carried to feed the people as inevitably as it will grow. If you want to fasten the blame of the affair at Los Muertos on any one person, you will make a mistake. Blame conditions, not men.
Frank Norris (The Octopus: A Story of California)
Every science begins as philosophy and ends as art: It arises in hypothesis and flows into achievement. Philosophy is a hypothetical interpretation of the unknown (as in metaphysics), or of the inexactly known (as in ethics or political philosophy). It is the front trench in the siege of truth. Science is the captured territory, and behind it are those secure regions in which knowledge and art build our imperfect and marvelous world. Philosophy seems to stand still, perplexed, but only because she leaves the fruits of victory to her daughters the sciences, and herself passes on, divinely discontent, to the uncertain and unexplored.
Will Durant (The Story of Philosophy (1938 New Revised Edition))
At the last moments of the universe, with eternal darkness converging from all sides, surely someone will arise and cry out: ‘Hold back the end for a final moment, while I pay tribute to the gallant brewmasters who have provided us a pathway of golden glory down the fading corridors of time!’ And then, is it not possible that a bright gap will appear in the dark, through which the brewmasters are allowed to proceed, to build a finer universe?
Jack Vance (Lurulu (Ports of Call, 2))
The wise are not conspicuous in their actions or given to much talking. When troubles arise, they are not irritated. They produce, but do not hoard; They act, but expect no praise; They build, but do not dwell therein.
Lao Tzu (Tao Te Ching)
And the slaveholding producers of racist ideas had convinced legions of Americans to see slavery as a necessary evil to pay off their debts and build their nation. Besides, it seemed better than the supposed horrific barbarism bound to arise, they argued, from Black freedom.
Ibram X. Kendi (Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America)
Rules are a guide, not an absolute. Certainly there are penalties, real or imaginary, which may arise when you break a rule. But there are rewards as well. Those who threw tea into Boston Harbor flouted the laws of the British Parliament. Eventually they gained a new and separate nation.
Alan C. Fox (People Tools: 54 Strategies for Building Relationships, Creating Joy, and Embracing Prosperity)
intentions,” also known as “action triggers” or “if-then” planning. “If ________ happens, then I will do _______.” With “if-then” planning, we try to plan for every habit challenge that might arise, so we don’t make decisions in the heat of the moment—we’ve already decided how to behave.
Gretchen Rubin (Better Than Before: What I Learned About Making and Breaking Habits--to Sleep More, Quit Sugar, Procrastinate Less, and Generally Build a Happier Life)
Science is going to build a base on the Moon! This is a very necessary and a very possible mission! Start and finish! Thousands of problems will arise in this mission, thousands of solutions will be found! Start and finish! Moon is a good hole to enter the blood vessels of the universe. Start and finish!
Mehmet Murat ildan
Our subjective awareness arises out of our dominant left hemisphere’s unrelenting quest to explain these bits and pieces that have popped into consciousness. Notice that popped is in the past tense. This is a post hoc rationalization process. The interpreter that weaves our story only weaves what makes it into consciousness. Because consciousness is a slow process, whatever has made it to consciousness has already happened. It is a fait accompli. As we saw in my story at the beginning of the chapter, I had already jumped before I realized whether I had seen a snake or if it was the wind rustling the grass. What does it mean that we build our theories about ourselves after the fact? How much of the time are we confabulating, giving a fictitious account of a past event, believing it to be true? This post hoc interpreting process has implications for and an impact on the big questions of free will and determinism
Michael S. Gazzaniga (Who's in Charge?: Free Will and the Science of the Brain)
They say that near the end of its life, a Phoenix builds a nest of twigs, and then ignites it; both, the nest and the bird burn until merely ashes are left, from which a new, young phoenix arises, reborn to live again. No, some Phoenixes don't rise again, they are fated to burn in their own hell till infinity
Shahid Hussain Raja
The relationships you have with family and close friends are going to be the most important sources of happiness in your life. But you have to be careful. When it seems like everything at home is going well, you will be lulled into believing that you can put your investments in these relationships onto the back burner. That would be an enormous mistake. By the time serious problems arise in those relationships, it often is too late to repair them. This means, almost paradoxically, that the time when it is most important to invest in building strong families and close friendships is when it appears, at the surface, as if it’s not necessary.
Clayton M. Christensen (How Will You Measure Your Life?)
To achieve massive success, you need to have a big new opportunity—one where the market size and gross margins intersect to create enormous potential value, and there isn’t a dominant market leader or oligopoly. A big new opportunity often arises because a technological innovation creates a new market or scrambles an existing one.
Reid Hoffman (Blitzscaling: The Lightning-Fast Path to Building Massively Valuable Companies)
The question may arise—how can credible Christian organizations justify and condone meditative practices that clearly resemble Eastern meditation? As pointed out earlier in this book, Christian terminology surrounds these practices. It only takes a few popular Christian leaders with national profiles to embrace a teaching that sounds Christian to bring about big changes in the church. Moreover, we have many trusting Christians who do not use the Scriptures to test the claims of others. Building an entire prayer method around an out-of-context verse or two is presumptuous, at best. Now more than ever, it is critical that Christians devote themselves to serious Bible study and discernment regarding this issue.
Ray Yungen (A Time of Departing)
I’m not going to tell you this is God’s judgment… but I have to wonder. The Rapture comes after the Tribulation… that’s New Testament. I don’t remember the Bible being very clear on that…” “There wasn’t a bulleted list?” “Heh…” “Well, I figured with the ten commandments the lord liked to keep things itemized…” “Less than you’d think… anyway, this fits the build.” “Resurrection?” “Not… really. But depending on how you look at it, Jesus was a Zombie, right?
Bryan Way (Life After: The Arising (Life After, #1))
It is in the nature of man that he is antagonistic toward the others of his sex. Each man sees in another a potential competitor for the limited rewards of male success, and the hostility which arises between them is a part of the natural balance of human life. It is possible, as in the case of father and son, that a closeness will arise between two men which threatens the functional hostility of each. It is the duty of society to provide an artificial means of encouraging the proper degree of antagonism.
C.S. Friedman
Your task is to vibrate with love to the best of your ability. Love your friends and love yourself, be nurturing and harmonious, and be at peace. This in itself is a great feat, one most of your ancestors never quite semed to achieve. However some of them did pass the test, creating what you would call Utopia. Where does Utopia dwell? Could Utopia dwell in the time line of Earth that you know? Is it possible to build a Utopia? Or would it simply arise of its own nature because of a natural tendency to rise to a higher frequency?
Barbara Marciniak (Family of Light: Pleiadian Tales and Lessons in Living)
This is one of the things that concerns me about AI. It seems increasingly likely that we will build machines that will seem conscious, and the effect could be so convincing that we might lose sight of the hard problem. It could cease to seem philosophically interesting, or even ethically appropriate, to wonder whether there is something it is like to be one of these robots. And yet we still won’t know whether they are actually conscious unless we have understood how consciousness arises in the first place—which is to say, unless we have solved the hard problem.
Sam Harris (Making Sense: Conversations on Consciousness, Morality, and the Future of Humanity)
I make a distinction between the wisdom of age - which can only arise from the greater profundity and foresight that are based on the experiences of a long life - and the creative genius of youth, which blossoms out in thought and ideas with inexhaustible fertility, without being able to put these into practice immediately, because of their very superabundance. These furnish the building materials and plans for the future; and it is from them that age takes the stones and builds the edifice, unless the so-called wisdom of the years may have smothered the creative genius of youth.
Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)
best hopes coming true. As the relationship progresses and the pair become closer and more interdependent, a couple bubble may form, and the perception of permanence may emerge. This is of course what they hope for. Yet sometimes along with security comes its opposite. Fears and expectations that date back to earlier experiences of dependency, but that didn’t arise during courtship or dating, are activated as commitment to the relationship increases. As a result, partners start to anticipate the worst, not the best, from their relationship. Anticipation of the worst is not logically purposeful, nor does it
Stan Tatkin (Wired for Love: How Understanding Your Partner's Brain and Attachment Style Can Help You Defuse Conflict and Build a Secure Relationship)
The spirit of the age cannot be compassed by the processes of human reason. It is an inclination, an emotional tendency that works upon weaker minds, through the unconscious, with an overwhelming force of suggestion that carries them along with it. To think otherwise than our contemporaries think is somehow illegitimate and disturbing; it is even indecent, morbid or blasphemous, and therefore socially dangerous for the individual. He is stupidly swimming against the social current. Just as formerly the assumption was unquestionable that everything that exists takes its rise from the creative will of a God who is spirit, so the nineteenth century discovered the equally unquestionable truth that everything arises from material causes. Today the psyche does not build itself a body, but on the contrary, matter, by chemical action, produces the psyche. This reversal of outlook would be ludicrous if it were not one of the outstanding features of the spirit of the age. It is the popular way of thinking, and therefore it is decent, reasonable, scientific and normal. Mind must be thought to be an epiphenomenon of matter. The same conclusion is reached even if we say not "mind" but "psyche", and in place of matter speak of brain, hormones, instincts or drives. To grant the substantiality of the soul or psyche is repugnant to the spirit of the age, for to do so would be heresy.
C.G. Jung (Modern Man in Search of a Soul)
The client thereby embarks on a process of selective change, which is possible, rather than remaining paralyzed by the seeming necessity of total change, which would be impossible. Besides that issue of building a fence that gets addressed in the first session, another issue is also often addressed then: the question “Why now?” That’s short-hand for: “Why did you decide to seek help in a crisis center today, and why do you feel a sense of crisis now, rather than some time earlier, or not at all?” In the case of a crisis arising from a single unanticipated shock, such as the Cocoanut Grove fire, that question needn’t be asked because the obvious answer is the shock itself. But the answer is not obvious
Jared Diamond (Upheaval: Turning Points for Nations in Crisis)
we know intuitively and from experience that we work better in a complex interdependent task with someone we know and trust, but we are not prepared to spend the effort, time, and money to ensure that such relationships are built. We value such relationships when they are built as part of the work itself, as in military operations where soldiers form intense personal relationships with their buddies. We admire the loyalty to each other and the heroism that is displayed on behalf of someone with whom one has a relationship, but when we see such deep relationships in a business organization, we consider it unusual. And programs for team building are often the first things cut in the budget when cost issues arise. The
Edgar H. Schein (Humble Inquiry: The Gentle Art of Asking Instead of Telling)
[the idea that history arises in phases] is not what Marxism teaches. To say that capitalism can be drawn on for an improved future is not to imply that it exists for that reason. Nor does socialism follow necessarily from it. It is not to suggest that the crimes of capitalism are justified by the advent of socialism. Nor is it to claim that capitalism was bound to emerge. Modes of production do not arise necessarily. It is not as though they are linked to all previous stages by some internal logic. No stage of the process exists for the sake of the others. History for Marx is not moving in any particular direction. Capitalism can be used to build socialism, but there's no sense in which the whole historical process is secretly laboring towards the goal.
Terry Eagleton (Why Marx Was Right)
Urbanization, we may conclude, has played a crucial role in the absorption of capital surpluses, at ever increasing geographical scales, but at the price of burgeoning processes of creative destruction that have dispossessed the masses of any right to the city whatsoever. The planet as building site collides with the ‘planet of slums’. [16] Periodically this ends in revolt, as in Paris in 1871 or the US after the assassination of Martin Luther King in 1968. If, as seems likely, fiscal difficulties mount and the hitherto successful neoliberal, postmodernist and consumerist phase of capitalist surplus-absorption through urbanization is at an end and a broader crisis ensues, then the question arises: where is our 68 or, even more dramatically, our version of the Commune?
Rebel Cities- David Harvey
But when, by the improvement and cultivation of land, the labour of one family can provide food for two, the labour of half the society becomes sufficient to provide food for the whole. The other half, therefore, or at least the greater part of them, can be employed in providing other things, or in satisfying the other wants and fancies of mankind. Clothing and lodging, household furniture, and what is called equipage, are the principal objects of the greater part of those wants and fancies. The rich man consumes no more food than his poor neighbour. In quality it may be very different, and to select and prepare it may require more labour and art; but in quantity it is very nearly the same. But compare the spacious palace and great wardrobe of the one, with the hovel and the few rags of the other, and you will be sensible that the difference between their clothing, lodging, and household furniture, is almost as great in quantity as it is in quality. The desire of food is limited in every man by the narrow capacity of the human stomach; but the desire of the conveniencies and ornaments of building, dress, equipage, and household furniture, seems to have no limit or certain boundary. Those, therefore, who have the command of more food than they themselves can consume, are always willing to exchange the surplus, or, what is the same thing, the price of it, for gratifications of this other kind. What is over and above satisfying the limited desire, is given for the amusement of those desires which cannot be satisfied, but seem to be altogether endless. The poor, in order to obtain food, exert themselves to gratify those fancies of the rich; and to obtain it more certainly, they vie with one another in the cheapness and perfection of their work. The number of workmen increases with the increasing quantity of food, or with the growing improvement and cultivation of the lands; and as the nature of their business admits of the utmost subdivisions of labour, the quantity of materials which they can work up, increases in a much greater proportion than their numbers. Hence arises a demand for every sort of material which human invention can employ, either usefully or ornamentally, in building, dress, equipage, or household furniture; for the fossils and minerals contained in the bowels of the earth, the precious metals, and the precious stones.
Adam Smith (An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations)
In time there opened out to Chichikov a still wider field, for a Commission was appointed to supervise the erection of a Government building, and, on his being nominated to that body, he proved himself one of its most active members. The Commission got to work without delay, but for a space of six years had some trouble with the building in question. Either the climate hindered operations or the materials used were of the kind which prevents official edifices from ever rising higher than the basement. But, meanwhile, OTHER quarters of the town saw arise, for each member of the Commission, a handsome house of the NON-official style of architecture. Clearly the foundation afforded by the soil of those parts was better than that where the Government building was still engaged in hanging fire!
Nikolai Gogol (Dead Souls)
Your first minutes on the streets of an unfamiliar city are always special: what happens in later months or years can never supplant them. These minutes are filled with the visual equivalent of nuclear energy, a kind of nuclear power of attention. With penetrating insight and an all-pervading excitement, you absorb a huge universe – houses, trees, faces of passersby, signs, squares, smells, dust, cats and dogs, the color of the sky. During these minutes, like an omnipresent God, you bring a new world into being: you create, you build inside yourself a whole city with all its streets and squares, with its courtyards and patios, with its sparrows, with its thousands of years of history, with its food shops and its shops for manufactured goods, with its opera house and its canteens. This city that suddenly arises from nonbeing is a special city; it differs from the city that exists in reality – it is the city of a particular person.
Vasily Grossman (An Armenian Sketchbook)
There are certain encounters that one knows will never be repeated so long as one lives. The firstborn child can't be born twice; one's virginity, once lost, can never be found again; the sheer awe one feels when laying hand on a giant sequoia cannot be rivaled. Other times escape our notice, slipping by while we are preoccupied, and we do not appreciate their enormity until it's too late to do anything but regret that we had not paid more attention in the present. For me, the times I always regret are missed opportunities to say farewell to good people, to wish them long life and say to them in all sincerity, "You build and do not destroy; you sow goodwill and read it; smiles bloom in the wake of your passing, and I will keep your kindness in trust and share it as occasion arises, so that your life will be a quenching draught of clam in a land of drought and stress." Too often I never get to say that when it should be said. Instead, I leave them with the equivalent of a "Later, dude!" only to discover some time afterward that there would never be a later for us.
Kevin Hearne (Hammered (The Iron Druid Chronicles, #3))
What, then, does submission and respect look like for a woman in a dating relationship? Here are some guidelines: 1. A woman should allow the man to initiate the relationship. This does not mean that she does nothing. She helps! If she thinks there is a good possibility for a relationship, she makes herself accessible to him and helps him to make conversation, putting him at ease and encouraging him as opportunities arise (she does the opposite when she does not have interest in a relationship with a man). A godly woman will not try to manipulate the start of a relationship, but will respond to the interest and approaches of a man in a godly, encouraging way. 2. A godly woman should speak positively and respectfully about her boyfriend, both when with him and when apart. 3. She should give honest attention to his interests and respond to his attention and care by opening up her heart. 4. She should recognize the sexual temptations with which a single man will normally struggle. Knowing this, she will dress attractively but modestly, and will avoid potentially compromising situations. She must resist the temptation to encourage sexual liberties as a way to win his heart. 5. The Christian woman should build up the man with God's Word and give encouragement to godly leadership. She should allow and seek biblical encouragement from the man she is dating. 6. She should make "helping" and "respecting" the watchwords of her behavior toward a man. She should ask herself, "How can I encourage him, especially in his walk with God?" "How can I provide practical helps that are appropriate to the current place in our relationship?" She should share with him in a way that will enable him to care for her heart, asking, "What can I do or say that will help him to understand who I really am, and how can I participate in the things he cares about?" 7. She must remember that this is a brother in the Lord. She should not be afraid to end an unhealthy relationship, but should seek to do so with charity and grace. Should the relationship not continue forward, the godly woman will ensure that her time with a man will have left him spiritually blessed.
Richard D. Phillips (Holding Hands, Holding Hearts: Recovering a Biblical View of Christian Dating)
The Dark Knight His gift is that he pushes a woman’s emotional and sexual edges. The Dark Knight lives at his own edge. The Dark Knight is named the dark knight because he’s ready and willing to face danger, and even death, to be fully alive. You don’t have to risk your life to traverse this edge. You need only to be willing to pull back the curtain of fear and look at where you’re hiding or what you're hiding from. A man who lives at his edge is exciting to a woman because he demonstrates courage and bold resolve. He knows how to push a woman’s sexual and emotional edge and open her to hidden aspects of herself – because he doesn’t avoid his own. The Lover His gift is the gift of sexual integrity. The Lover owns his sexuality. He takes responsibility for what arises in him sexually and how he acts on that – never pretending that his sexual excitement controls him. By being in sexual possession he can give a woman something most men cannot: sexual freedom. The Lover is a powerful amalgamation of all the types, but most especially The Sage and The Dark Knight. His integrity builds trust, like The Sage. His fearlessness inspires passion, like The Dark Knight. His willingness to take responsibility sets a woman free. Your opportunity in embodying this archetype is parlaying ownership and responsibility into a very deep sexual connection with a woman.
Karen Brody (Open Her: Activate 7 Masculine Powers to Arouse Your Woman's Love & Desire)
Auric Colors and Their Meanings. Ÿ Black: represents hatred, malice, revenge, and similar feelings. Ÿ Gray: of a bright shade, represents selfishness. Ÿ Gray: of a peculiar shade (almost that of a corpse) , represents fear and terror. Ÿ Gray: of a dark shade, represents depression and melancholy. Ÿ Green: of a dirty shade, represents jealousy. If much anger is mingled with the jealousy, it will appear as red flashes on the green background. Ÿ Green: of almost a slate color shade, represents low deceit. Ÿ Green: of a peculiar bright shade, represents tolerance to the opinions and beliefs of others, easy adjustment to changing conditions, adaptability, tact, politeness, worldly wisdom, etc., and qualities which some might possibly consider "refined deceit." Ÿ Red: of a shade resembling the dull flame when it bursts out of a burning building, mingled with the smoke, represents sensuality and the animal passions. Ÿ Red: seen in the shape of bright red flashes resembling the lightning flash in shape, indicates anger. These are usually shown on a black background in the case of anger arising from hatred or malice, but in cases of anger arising from jealousy they appear on a greenish background. Anger arising from indignation or defense of a supposed "right," lacks these backgrounds, and usually shows as red flashes independent of a background. Ÿ Blue: of a dark shade, represents religious thought, emotion, and feeling. This color, however, varies in clearness according to the degree of unselfishness manifest in the religious conception. The shades and degrees of clearness vary from a dull indigo to Ÿ Crimson: represents love, varying in shade according to the character of the passion. A gross sensual love will be a dull and heavy crimson, while one mixed with higher feelings will appear in lighter and more pleasing shades. A very high form of love shows a color almost approaching a beautiful rose color. Ÿ Brown: of a reddish tinge, represents avarice and greed. Ÿ Orange: of a bright shade, represents pride and ambition. Ÿ Yellow: in its various shades, represents intellectual power. If the intellect contents itself with things of a low order, the shade is a dark, dull yellow; and as the field of the intellect rises to higher levels, the color grows brighter and clearer, a beautiful golden yellow betokening great intellectual attainment, broad and brilliant reasoning, etc. a beautiful rich violet, the latter representing the highest religious feeling. § Light Blue: of a peculiarly clear and luminous shade, represents spirituality. Some of the higher degrees of spirituality observed in ordinary mankind show themselves in this shade of blue filled with luminous bright points, sparkling and twinkling like stars on a clear winter night.
William Walker Atkinson (Fourteen Lessons in Yogi Philosophy and Oriental Occultism)
In Amsterdam, I took a room in a small hotel located in the Jordann District and after lunch in a café went for a walk in the western parts of the city. In Flaubert’s Alexandria, the exotic had collected around camels, Arabs peacefully fishing and guttural cries. Modern Amsterdam provided different but analogous examples: buildings with elongated pale-pink bricks stuck together with curiously white mortar, long rows of narrow apartment blocks from the early twentieth century, with large ground-floor windows, bicycles parked outside every house, street furniture displaying a certain demographic scruffiness, an absence of ostentatious buildings, straight streets interspersed with small parks…..In one street lines with uniform apartment buildings, I stopped by a red front door and felt an intense longing to spend the rest of my life there. Above me, on the second floor, I could see an apartment with three large windows and no curtains. The walls were painted white and decorated with a single large painting covered with small blue and red dots. There was an oaken desk against a wall, a large bookshelf and an armchair. I wanted the life that this space implied. I wanted a bicycle; I wanted to put my key in that red front door every evening. Why be seduced by something as small as a front door in another country? Why fall in love with a place because it has trams and its people seldom have curtains in their homes? However absurd the intense reactions provoked by such small (and mute) foreign elements my seem, the pattern is at least familiar from our personal lives. My love for the apartment building was based on what I perceived to be its modesty. The building was comfortable but not grand. It suggested a society attracted to the financial mean. There was an honesty in its design. Whereas front doorways in London are prone to ape the look of classical temples, in Amsterdam they accept their status, avoiding pillars and plaster in favor of neat, undecorated brick. The building was modern in the best sense, speaking of order, cleanliness, and light. In the more fugitive, trivial associations of the word exotic, the charm of a foreign place arises from the simple idea of novelty and change-from finding camels where at home there are horses, for example, or unadorned apartment buildings where at home there are pillared ones. But there may be a more profound pleasure as well: we may value foreign elements not only because they are new but because they seem to accord more faithfully with our identity and commitments than anything our homeland can provide. And so it was with my enthusiasms in Amsterdam, which were connected to my dissatisfactions with my own country, including its lack of modernity and aesthetic simplicity, its resistance to urban life and its net-curtained mentality. What we find exotic abroad may be what we hunger for in vain at home.
Alain de Botton (The Art of Travel)
The undiscerning observer may think that this mixture of ideal and reality, of the human and spiritual, is most likely to be present where there are a number of levels in the structure of a community, as in marriage, the family, friendship, where the human element as such already assumes a central importance in the community’s coming into being at all, and where the spiritual is only something added to the physical and intellectual. According to this view, it is only in these relationships that there is a danger of confusing and mixing the two spheres, whereas there can be no such danger in a purely spiritual fellowship. This idea, however, is a great delusion. According to all experience the truth is just the opposite. A marriage, a family, a friendship is quite conscious of the limitations of its community-building power; such relationships know very well, if they are sound, where the human element stops and the spiritual begins. They know the difference between physical-intellectual and spiritual community. On the contrary, when a community of a purely spiritual kind is established, it always encounters the danger that everything human will be carried into and intermixed with this fellowship. A purely spiritual relationship is not only dangerous but also an altogether abnormal thing. When physical and family relationships or ordinary associations, that is, those arising from everyday life with all its claims upon people who are working together, are not projected into the spiritual community, then we must be especially careful. That is why, as experience has shown, it is precisely in retreats of short duration that the human element develops most easily. Nothing is easier than to stimulate the glow of fellowship in a few days of life together, but nothing is more fatal to the sound, sober, brotherly fellowship of everyday life. There is probably no Christian to whom God has not given the uplifting experience of genuine Christian community at least once in his life. But in this world such experiences can be no more than a gracious extra beyond the daily bread of Christian community life. We have no claim upon such experiences, and we do not live with other Christians for the sake of acquiring them. It is not the experience of Christian brotherhood, but solid and certain faith in brotherhood that holds us together. That God has acted and wants to act upon us all, this we see in faith as God’s greatest gift, this makes us glad and happy, but it also makes us ready to forego all such experiences when God at times does not grant them. We are bound together by faith, not by experience. ‘Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity’—this is the Scripture’s praise of life together under the Word. But now we can rightly interpret the words ‘in unity’ and say, ‘for brethren to dwell together through Christ’. For Jesus Christ alone is our unity. ‘He is our peace’. Through him alone do we have access to one another, joy in one another, and fellowship with one another.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (Life Together)
The concept of product/ market fit originates in Marc Andreessen’s seminal blog post “The Only Thing That Matters.” In his essay, Andreessen argues that the most important factor in successful start-ups is the combination of market and product. His definition couldn’t be simpler: “Product/ market fit means being in a good market with a product that can satisfy that market.” Without product/ market fit, it’s impossible to grow a start-up into a successful business. As Andreessen notes, You see a surprising number of really well-run start-ups that have all aspects of operations completely buttoned down, HR policies in place, great sales model, thoroughly thought-through marketing plan, great interview processes, outstanding catered food, 30" monitors for all the programmers, top tier VCs on the board—heading straight off a cliff due to not ever finding product/ market fit. Unfortunately, it’s far easier to define product/ market fit than it is to establish it! When you start a new company, the key product/ market fit question you need to answer is whether you have discovered a nonobvious market opportunity where you have a unique advantage or approach, and one that competing players won’t see until you’ve had a chance to build a healthy lead. It’s usually difficult to find such an opportunity in a “hot” space; if an opportunity is obvious to everyone, the chance that you’ll be the one who succeeds is exceedingly low. Most nonobvious opportunities arise from a change in the market that the incumbents aren’t willing or able to adapt to.
Reid Hoffman (Blitzscaling: The Lightning-Fast Path to Building Massively Valuable Companies)
Letter to the tech giants: When fame and abundance kiss somebody’s feet before that person is wise enough, he or she is very likely to lose track of what’s necessity and what’s luxury. And modern society is filled with examples of such intelligent stupidity – stupidity that is carried out by apparently smart humans. Because being smart is not the same as being wise. The world has enough smartness, but not enough wisdom to bring that smartness into proper productive practice – and I mean productive practice not sophisticated practice – there is a difference. A person smart enough to visualize a Falcon rocket engine can easily pinpoint the locations of various organizations that spread terrorism, yet the person chooses to explore the space further instead of prioritizing the technological advantages to first fix real issues of the human society that inflict harm to the humans every walk of the way. The world is a miserable place not because we have lack of resources, but because those who have an abundance of resources do not have the slightest idea of true human need. The resources needed for colonizing Mars if put to proper practice can fix the world’s global warming issues – it can fix the world’s climate change issues – it can fix the world’s terrorism issues, yet people are more interested in the pompous idea of living in Mars for whatever reason, instead of paying attention to improving human condition on earth. I am not against technological advancement, for I am a scientist, but my soul aches when I see smart people are dumb enough to chase after illusory glory of doing something different and innovative instead of focusing the powers of their soul on cleaning up the misery business on earth. You can, yet you don’t. Why? Smartness without wisdom is stupidity. You are smart – yes indeed – but I am sorry – you are stupid at the same time. How can you dream of having a cheese burger on Mars when your own kind on Earth is suffering! How can you think of taking rich kids into the orbit just so they can admire the beauty of earth from the heavens, when that very earth is infested with the primordial evils of human character! Awaken the human within you my friend, and pay attention. Awaken the human within and let it consume all the miseries from the world that you live in. Say a member of your family falls ill, would you ignore his or her misery completely just because you want to make life more comfortable for others than it already is, or would you first try everything in your capacity in order to heal your loved one! Be wise my friend, for it is not enough to be smart. You are smart – there is no doubt about that – so utilize that smartness for humanity and heal your own kind. Heal your kind with your capacity my friend. It is wailing for healers – not some delusional faith healers, but real tangible healers. Would you not do anything! Would you not give your soul to fix the broken soul of this world! Arise my friend, Awake my friend and work for humanity, not to make it sophisticated, but to make it peaceful first. Remember, humanity first, then everything else. Peace first, sophistication later. Harmony first, luxury later.
Abhijit Naskar
It should be clear by now that whatever Americans say about diversity, it is not a strength. If it were a strength, Americans would practice it spontaneously. It would not require “diversity management” or anti-discrimination laws. Nor would it require constant reminders of how wonderful it is. It takes no exhortations for us to appreciate things that are truly desirable: indoor plumbing, vacations, modern medicine, friendship, or cheaper gasoline. [W]hen they are free to do so, most people avoid diversity. The scientific evidence suggests why: Human beings appear to have deeply-rooted tribal instincts. They seem to prefer to live in homogeneous communities rather than endure the tension and conflict that arise from differences. If the goal of building a diverse society conflicts with some aspect of our nature, it will be very difficult to achieve. As Horace wrote in the Epistles, “Though you drive Nature out with a pitchfork, she will ever find her way back.” Some intellectuals and bohemians profess to enjoy diversity, but they appear to be a minority. Why do we insist that diversity is a strength when it is not? In the 1950s and 1960s, when segregation was being dismantled, many people believed full integration would be achieved within a generation. At that time, there were few Hispanics or Asians but with a population of blacks and whites, the United States could be described as “diverse.” It seemed vastly more forward-looking to think of this as an advantage to be cultivated rather than a weakness to be endured. Our country also seemed to be embarking on a morally superior course. Human history is the history of warfare—between nations, tribes, and religions —and many Americans believed that reconciliation between blacks and whites would lead to a new era of inclusiveness for all peoples of the world. After the immigration reforms of 1965 opened the United States to large numbers of non- Europeans, our country became more diverse than anyone in the 1950s would have imagined. Diversity often led to conflict, but it would have been a repudiation of the civil rights movement to conclude that diversity was a weakness. Americans are proud of their country and do not like to think it may have made a serious mistake. As examples of ethnic and racial tension continued to accumulate, and as the civil rights vision of effortless integration faded, there were strong ideological and even patriotic reasons to downplay or deny what was happening, or at least to hope that exhortations to “celebrate diversity” would turn what was proving to be a problem into an advantage. To criticize diversity raises the intolerable possibility that the United States has been acting on mistaken assumptions for half a century. To talk glowingly about diversity therefore became a form of cheerleading for America. It even became common to say that diversity was our greatest strength—something that would have astonished any American from the colonial era through the 1950s. There is so much emotional capital invested in the civil-rights-era goals of racial equality and harmony that virtually any critique of its assumptions is intolerable. To point out the obvious— that diversity brings conflict—is to question sacred assumptions about the ultimate insignificance of race. Nations are at their most sensitive and irrational where they are weakest. It is precisely because it is so easy to point out the weaknesses of diversity that any attempt to do so must be countered, not by specifying diversity’s strengths—which no one can do—but with accusations of racism.
Jared Taylor (White Identity: Racial Consciousness in the 21st Century)
Negroes have proceeded from a premise that equality means what it says, and they have taken white Americans at their word when they talked of it as an objective. But most whites in America in 1967, including many persons of goodwill, proceed from a premise that equality is a loose expression for improvement. White America is not even psychologically organized to close the gap—essentially it seeks only to make it less painful and less obvious but in most respects to retain it. Most of the abrasions between Negroes and white liberals arise from this fact. White America is uneasy with injustice and for ten years it believed it was righting wrongs. The struggles were often bravely fought by fine people. The conscience of man flamed high in hours of peril. The days can never be forgotten when the brutalities at Selma caused thousands all over the land to rush to our side, heedless of danger and of differences in race, class and religion. After the march to Montgomery, there was a delay at the airport and several thousand demonstrators waited more than five hours, crowding together on the seats, the floors and the stairways of the terminal building. As I stood with them and saw white and Negro, nuns and priests, ministers and rabbis, labor organizers, lawyers, doctors, housemaids and shopworkers brimming with vitality and enjoying a rare comradeship, I knew I was seeing a microcosm of the mankind of the future in this moment of luminous and genuine brotherhood. But these were the best of America, not all of America. Elsewhere the commitment was shallower. Conscience burned only dimly, and when atrocious behavior was curbed, the spirit settled easily into well-padded pockets of complacency. Justice at the deepest level had but few stalwart champions. A good many observers have remarked that if equality could come at once the Negro would not be ready for it. I submit that the white American is even more unprepared.
Martin Luther King Jr. (Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?)
sure what happened after the accident was client-protected,” he told Mazzone. By their silence, “Markham and Gargan were taking the big fall to protect Ted Kennedy.” Paul Redmond doubted the lawyer-client issue would even arise at the inquest. “People were walking around Boston whaling the bee-jesus out of Paul Markham and Joe Gargan for not reporting the accident—that was so unfair. Here were two guys, good lawyers and fine men, made to look like stooges or worse by the press.” Gargan had told him he could not have reported an accident in which a driver faced a possible manslaughter charge, Redmond said. “It’s no secret Joe was a dear friend. When I left the U.S. Attorney’s office, Paul Markham took my spot.” A week before the inquest, Redmond bumped into Gargan in the elevator of the building in which both had law offices. The Boiler Room girls were “upstairs,” Redmond said. “They haven’t seen you in a long time. I think they’d like to say hello.” Gargan went straight to Redmond’s office for “a nice reunion, a pleasant chat. Very friendly.” There was no discussion about the inquest. Gargan did not want to become involved in the preparation of anybody else’s testimony. As one of two persons at the party who wasn’t “a bit bombed,” Gargan’s memory of the occasion was “clear as a bell.” So it was Gargan’s description of the party that, along with the Senator’s two public versions of the accident, would provide the scenario for inquest testimony. If Gargan testified to the Senator’s attempt to cover up his involvement in the accident as the reason he had failed to report it until the next day, he could blow the entire lid off the case. But that prospect became moot when a writ of certiorari was filed on Tuesday, September 2, asking the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court to determine whether “errors of law” had been made in Judge Boyle’s ruling on the conduct of the scheduled inquest in re: Mary Jo Kopechne. Justice Paul Reardon scheduled a hearing for three o’clock. Notified an appeal had been filed,
Leo Damore (Chappaquiddick: Power, Privilege, and the Ted Kennedy Cover-Up)
Chapter 22 Aaron teaches Lamoni’s father about the Creation, the Fall of Adam, and the plan of redemption through Christ—The king and all his household are converted—The division of the land between the Nephites and the Lamanites is explained. About 90–77 B.C. 1 Now, as Ammon was thus teaching the people of Lamoni continually, we will return to the account of Aaron and his brethren; for after he departed from the land of Middoni he was led by the Spirit to the land of Nephi, even to the house of the king which was over all the land save it were the land of Ishmael; and he was the father of Lamoni. 2 And it came to pass that he went in unto him into the king’s palace, with his brethren, and bowed himself before the king, and said unto him: Behold, O king, we are the brethren of Ammon, whom thou hast delivered out of prison. 3 And now, O king, if thou wilt spare our lives, we will be thy servants. And the king said unto them: Arise, for I will grant unto you your lives, and I will not suffer that ye shall be my servants; but I will insist that ye shall administer unto me; for I have been somewhat troubled in mind because of the generosity and the greatness of the words of thy brother Ammon; and I desire to know the cause why he has not come up out of Middoni with thee. 4 And Aaron said unto the king: Behold, the Spirit of the Lord has called him another way; he has gone to the land of Ishmael, to teach the people of Lamoni. 5 Now the king said unto them: What is this that ye have said concerning the Spirit of the Lord? Behold, this is the thing which doth trouble me. 6 And also, what is this that Ammon said—If ye will repent ye shall be saved, and if ye will not repent, ye shall be cast off at the last day? 7 And Aaron answered him and said unto him: Believest thou that there is a God? And the king said: I know that the Amalekites say that there is a God, and I have granted unto them that they should build sanctuaries, that they may assemble themselves together to worship him. And if now thou sayest there is a God, behold I will believe. 8 And now when Aaron heard this, his heart began to rejoice, and he said: Behold, assuredly as thou livest, O king, there is a God. 9 And the king said: Is God that Great Spirit that
Joseph Smith Jr. (The Book of Mormon)
By appealing to the moral and philosophical foundation work of the nation, Lincoln hoped to provide common ground on which good men in both the North and the South could stand. “I am not now combating the argument of necessity, arising from the fact that the blacks are already amongst us; but I am combating what is set up as moral argument for allowing them to be taken where they have never yet been.” Unlike the majority of antislavery orators, who denounced the South and castigated slaveowners as corrupt and un-Christian, Lincoln pointedly denied fundamental differences between Northerners and Southerners. He argued that “they are just what we would be in their situation. If slavery did not now exist amongst them, they would not introduce it. If it did now exist amongst us, we should not instantly give it up. . . . When it is said that the institution exists; and that it is very difficult to get rid of it, in any satisfactory way, I can understand and appreciate the saying. I surely will not blame them for not doing what I should not know how to do myself.” And, finally, “when they remind us of their constitutional rights, I acknowledge them . . . and I would give them any legislation for the reclaiming of their fugitives.” Rather than upbraid slaveowners, Lincoln sought to comprehend their position through empathy. More than a decade earlier, he had employed a similar approach when he advised temperance advocates to refrain from denouncing drinkers in “thundering tones of anathema and denunciation,” for denunciation would inevitably be met with denunciation, “crimination with crimination, and anathema with anathema.” In a passage directed at abolitionists as well as temperance reformers, he had observed that it was the nature of man, when told that he should be “shunned and despised,” and condemned as the author “of all the vice and misery and crime in the land,” to “retreat within himself, close all the avenues to his head and his heart.” Though the cause be “naked truth itself, transformed to the heaviest lance, harder than steel,” the sanctimonious reformer could no more pierce the heart of the drinker or the slaveowner than “penetrate the hard shell of a tortoise with a rye straw. Such is man, and so must he be understood by those who would lead him.” In order to “win a man to your cause,” Lincoln explained, you must first reach his heart, “the great high road to his reason.” This, he concluded, was the only road to victory—to that glorious day “when there shall be neither a slave nor a drunkard on the earth.” Building on his rhetorical advice, Lincoln tried to place
Doris Kearns Goodwin (Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln)
Obama is also directing the U.S. government to invest billions of dollars in solar and wind energy. In addition, he is using bailout leverage to compel the Detroit auto companies to build small, “green” cars, even though no one in the government has investigated whether consumers are interested in buying small, “green” cars—the Obama administration just believes they should. All these measures, Obama recognizes, are expensive. The cap and trade legislation is estimated to impose an $850 billion burden on the private sector; together with other related measures, the environmental tab will exceed $1 trillion. This would undoubtedly impose a significant financial burden on an already-stressed economy. These measures are billed as necessary to combat global warming. Yet no one really knows if the globe is warming significantly or not, and no one really knows if human beings are the cause of the warming or not. For years people went along with Al Gore’s claim that “the earth has a fever,” a claim illustrated by misleading images of glaciers disappearing, oceans swelling, famines arising, and skies darkening. Apocalypse now! Now we know that the main body of data that provided the basis for these claims appears to have been faked. The Climategate scandal showed that scientists associated with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change were quite willing to manipulate and even suppress data that did not conform to their ideological commitment to global warming.3 The fakers insist that even if you discount the fakery, the data still show.... But who’s in the mood to listen to them now? Independent scientists who have reviewed the facts say that average global temperatures have risen by around 1.3 degrees Fahrenheit in the past 100 years. Lots of things could have caused that. Besides, if you project further back, the record shows quite a bit of variation: periods of warming, followed by periods of cooling. There was a Medieval Warm Period around 1000 A.D., and a Little Ice Age that occurred several hundred years later. In the past century, the earth warmed slightly from 1900 to 1940, then cooled slightly until the late 1970s, and has resumed warming slightly since then. How about in the past decade or so? Well, if you count from 1998, the earth has cooled in the past dozen years. But the statistic is misleading, since 1998 was an especially hot year. If you count from 1999, the earth has warmed in the intervening period. This statistic is equally misleading, because 1999 was a cool year. This doesn’t mean that temperature change is in the eye of the beholder. It means, in the words of Roy Spencer, former senior scientist for climate studies at NASA, that “all this temperature variability on a wide range of time scales reveals that just about the only thing constant in climate is change.”4
Dinesh D'Souza (The Roots of Obama's Rage)
Through all the years of considered opinion and thoughtful contribution that offers to explain the human condition, we are yet to see evidence of change which reflects the intent of that wisdom and thought. Until the wisdom offered is no longer required, humanity is destined to build fragile civilizations. This fragility, demonstrated through the ages, arises from an ongoing rejection of humility that, if nurtured, would form a foundation of connectedness and solidarity between people. On this foundation, a lasting future would be written into our history books (Steve Carlsson 2013).
Steve Carlsson (Being Human: A Question of Survival)
A whole person presents a completely different possibility in relationships than an incomplete person. A whole person can define needs, express feelings, and set limits. A whole person maintains a separate identity with boundaries rather than defenses. A boundary comes from an awareness of one’s distinctness from another. The ability to build one arises from finishing unfinished childhood agendas. Identifying the harm, feeling the suppressed feelings, and grieving the losses restore wholeness to the incomplete child living inside us. As this work is done, one’s capacity for intimacy expands.
Anne Katherine (Boundaries Where You End And I Begin: How To Recognize And Set Healthy Boundaries)
No one wants to suffer. But much as we would all like to live a totally happy life, suffering is an inescapable fact of our human existence. The observation that ‘Man is born unto trouble, as sparks fly upward’ may not have been much consolation to Job but, nevertheless, remains an uncomfortable truth. Generally speaking, suffering arises through our encounters with problems and difficulties; this is why much of our time is spent trying to avoid them, even though they are inherent in life. In trying to avoid problems, however, we are often simply putting off the inevitable to a future date, by which time the trouble has usually grown much more difficult to resolve. Personal relationships are a good example of this. The failure to tackle a problem between two people — a clash of desires, for instance – usually for fear of not knowing what the consequences will be, or perhaps simply because of a dislike of conflict, can very easily lead to a build-up of resentments which, when finally expressed, can be immensely destructive. The story of the ‘mild-mannered’ civil servant who, in 1987, was jailed for strangling his wife after twenty-six years of marriage, ostensibly because she simply moved his favourite mustard from its usual place at the dinner table, is an extreme, but true, example of this.
Richard G. Causton (The Buddha In Daily Life: An Introduction to the Buddhism of Nichiren Daishonin)
I strongly believe that you will arise and contribute your quota to nation building
Sunday Adelaja (No One Is Better Than You)
In a 2004 working paper, “Schumpeterian Profits in the American Economy: Theory and Measurement,” Yale economist William Nordhaus examined the US economy from 1948 to 2001. Based on the data he collected, he concluded that only 2.2 percent of “profits that arise when firms are able to appropriate the returns from innovative activity” went to the disrupters. “Most of the benefits of technological change are passed on to consumers rather than captured by producers,” he concluded. Like it or not, change is inevitable—but it doesn’t have to be wholly unexpected.
Reid Hoffman (Blitzscaling: The Lightning-Fast Path to Building Massively Valuable Companies)
was still angry with me, but the opportunity didn’t arise until Thanksgiving Day. After a physical domestic, I’d had to respond to the hospital to get the victim’s statement. I was walking around the corner when a nurse darted out from behind a curtain and right into me. My hands went out automatically to stabilize the person, and I looked down to find Casey staring up into my face, cheeks turning redder by the millisecond. “Hi, Casey,” I whispered and stared down into her gorgeous eyes. “I’m sorry I didn’t see you there.” Her mouth opened once, then twice, before she shook her head and stepped back out of my grasp. “Officer Wagner, I should be apologizing, I wasn’t watching where I was going. Is there something I can help you with?” “Casey,” I took a step closer and lowered my voice, “can’t we please talk for a second?” She stared at me for another second before she glanced at the nurse’s station, “I’m working, Officer Wagner.” She gave me her attention again, “Is there something I can help you with that pertains to work?” My anger began to build. Damn it, why was this woman being so stubborn! “Casey, come on, just give me two minutes.” She glared at me, “I told you before that we have
Stacy Eaton (Tangled in Tinsel (Celebration, #1))
The word which came to Jer-e-mi′-ah from the Lord, saying, 2 Arise, and go down to the potter's house, and there I will cause thee to hear my words. 3 Then I went down to the potter's house, and, behold, he wrought a work on the wheels. 4 And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter: so he made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it. 5 Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying, 6 O house of Is′-ra-el, a cannot I do with you as this potter? saith the Lord. Behold, b as the clay is in the potter's hand, so are ye in mine hand, O house of Is′-ra-el. 7 At what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to c pluck up, and to pull down, and to destroy it, 8 d If that nation, against whom I have pronounced, turn from their evil, e I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them. 9 And at what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it, 10 If it do evil in my sight, that it obey not my voice, then I will repent of the good, wherewith I said I would benefit them.
Anonymous (KJV Study Bible)
To remedy chaotic situations requires a chaotic approach, one that is non-linear, constantly morphing, and continually sharpening its competitive edge with recurring feedback loops that build upon past experiences and lessons learned. Improvement cannot be sustained without reflection. Chaos arises from myriad sources that stem from two origins: internal chaos rising within you, and external chaos being imposed upon you by the environment. The result of this push/pull effect is the disequilibrium that you feel in your heart, mind, body and soul, and which manifests itself as confusion, anxiety, lack of fulfillment, or despair.
Jeff Boss (Navigating Chaos: How to Find Certainty in Uncertain Situations)
I do not believe there is any place in this country for any particular culture, whether it is a Hindu culture, or a Muhammadan culture or a Kanarese culture or a Gujarati culture. There are things we cannot deny, but they are not to be cultivated as advantages, they are to be treated as disadvantages, as something which divides our loyalty and takes away from us our common goal. That common goal is the building up of the feeling that we are all Indians. I do not like what some people say, that we are Indians first and Hindus afterwards or Muslims afterwards. I am not satisfied with that… I do not want that our loyalty as Indians should be in the slightest way affected by any competitive loyalty whether that loyalty arises out of our religion, out of our culture or out of our language. I want all people to be Indians first, Indians last and nothing else but Indians…
Romila Thapar (On Nationalism)
As government, and strong rods for the exercise of it, are necessary to preserve public societies from dreadful and fatal calamities arising from among themselves; so no less requisite are they to defend the community from foreign enemies. As they are like the pillars of a building, so they are also like the walls and bulwarks of a city: they are under God the main strength of a people in a time of war and the chief instruments of their preservation, safety and rest.
Jonathan Edwards (Selected Sermons of Jonathan Edwards)
I tell this story here to begin to offer an answer to the question posed by the title of this chapter: What Makes a Tough Mudder? It’s my belief that ideas for new businesses that capture people’s imagination don’t ever arise by accident. There is a kind of inevitability about them. They form as answers to questions that have existed in their founders’ minds for years before finding the right expression. To a degree these things are subconscious. But I’m sure it wasn’t entirely by chance that having grown up in a place that had dramatically lost its identity and purpose, I was drawn to try to create a business and a culture that might offer a version of those values in a different way and to a new generation. Did I already carry some of that nostalgia for grit and camaraderie with me from Worksop when my parents made a huge financial sacrifice and sent me away to an exclusive boarding school at age thirteen? I’d like to think so. The result of that sacrifice was not necessarily the one my parents thought they were paying for, though. I felt that I didn’t quite belong in the rough-edged town of my birth, but I also wasn’t convinced I belonged in the more privileged world of the English shires a hundred miles south. A place where nobody but me seemed to come from an industrial town at all. I went from one community that I didn’t fit into to another—but again, as something of an outsider, there were aspects of that new culture that intrigued me, that got me thinking about how shared values might be created, how I might feel like I belonged.
Will Dean (It Takes a Tribe: Building the Tough Mudder Movement)
The law of karma is like the wind—blowing on all. Whether you are good or evil, bright or dim, kind or unkind, there is no escaping the effects of your thoughts and the actions that arise from those thoughts. In fact, the only difference between the wise and the ignorant is that an illuminated mind erects windmills while the ignorant mind builds weather vanes.
Darren Main (The River of Wisdom: Reflections on Yoga, Meditation, and Mindful Living)
In this thought world, we experience only our concepts, beliefs, stereotypes and prejudices: a run-down building, an old man, an irritating family member, a chair or table, a frustrating job, an alcoholic. These concepts filter our experience so completely that we stop witnessing what is right before us. Worse, we’re not supposed to see it. The prevailing mindset in this culture is that life is dangerous and we have been expelled from the Garden. Instead of Heaven on Earth, we see scarcity, competition, hardship, struggle, and danger. All the pain, fear and conflict that dominate our world arise from this mindset.
John C. Robinson (The Three Secrets of Aging)
The building frustrations we put ourselves through, in our mind, have to do with people, places or things. If we lean into these thoughts with kindness and calm, when situations arise we’re able to demonstrate true wisdom instead of losing our temper.
Ron Baratono
This attitude — that the inner guru is enough — is often adopted by those whose intellectual orientation is slightly nihilistic or who are from very controlling, high- achieving families and resent the idea of yet another powerful person breathing down their necks. Then there are others who like to be led. Even when it comes to mundane issues, they don’t trust their own judgment or inner voice. They can barely go to the grocery store without being full of doubt. They also tend to be a little bit lazy, asking the guru for advice on every little thing that pops into their heads. These types of people have to learn to trust themselves and rely less on the outer guru. They might find that the more they trust the inner and secret gurus, the more they rely on and love the outer guru. Ultimately, the question of whether the inner guru is enough for you is irrelevant if your spiritual aim is to attain enlightenment. But there is an easy way to find the answer. If you can overcome any and all external circumstances, then maybe you don’t need the outer guru, because by then all appearance and experience arise as the guru anyway. On the other hand, if a practitioner is not able to control circumstances and situations, then all kinds of mind training are necessary. Therefore, one needs to be led, to be poked, to be spoon-fed. To find out whether or not you are controlled by circumstances and situations, there are myriad things you can do, such as skip lunch. If you are a man, wear a bra and walk around in public. If you are a woman, go to a fancy party in your bedroom slippers. If you are married, see if you can tolerate someone pinching your spouse’s bottom. See if you are swayed by praise, criticism, being ignored, or being showered with attention. If you get agitated, embarrassed, or infuriated, then more than likely you are still under the spell of the conditions of habit and culture. You are still a victim of causes and conditions. When a loved one dies or the life you are trying to build collapses, it’s likely that your understanding of the inner and secret gurus will not ease the pain. Nor will your understanding of “form is emptiness and emptiness is form” provide solace. In this case, you need to insert a new cause to counter these conditions. Because your understanding of the inner and secret gurus is only intellectual, you cannot call upon them. This is where the outer, physical, reachable guru is necessary. As long as you dwell in a realm where externally existing friends and lovers are necessary, as long as you are bothered by externally existing obstacles like passions and moral judgments, you need a guru. Basically, as long as you have a dualistic mind, don’t kid yourself by thinking that an inner guru is enough. When you reach a point where you can actually communicate with your inner guru, you will have little or no more dualism. You will no longer be repelled by or attracted to an outer guru. Therefore, the outer guru is necessary until you at least have the gist of the inner and secret gurus. When you realize the inner and secret gurus, you won’t even be able to find the outer guru anymore.
Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche
Focus on the next step, not the next thousand steps. Use your willpower to move your attention away from the overwhelming aspects of a project and narrow it down to the next actionable task you can get started on. Lower your perfectionistic standards. Decrease your initial resistance to getting started by lowering your standards. For example, aim to meditate for one minute, not 20 minutes. Follow the two-minute rule. If a task takes less than two minutes to complete, do it immediately. Set an implementation intention. Use the formula, “If situation X arises, then I will perform response Y.” A common example: “If I get home after work, then I’ll immediately start studying for my upcoming math exam.” Focus on the process, not the outcome. Set a timer for 20 to 30 minutes and focus on the process of working on a dreaded task for that predetermined amount of time.
Nils Salzgeber (Stop Procrastinating: A Simple Guide to Hacking Laziness, Building Self Discipline, and Overcoming Procrastination)