β
We have to continually be jumping off cliffs and developing our wings on the way down.
β
β
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (If This Isn't Nice, What Is?: Advice for the Young)
β
Develop success from failures. Discouragement and failure are two of the surest stepping stones to success.
β
β
Dale Carnegie
β
When the soul suffers too much, it develops a taste for misfortune.
β
β
Albert Camus (The First Man)
β
Develop an interest in life as you see it; the people, things, literature, music - the world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls and interesting people. Forget yourself.
β
β
Henry Miller
β
Beauty of whatever kind, in its supreme development, invariably excites the sensitive soul to tears.
β
β
Edgar Allan Poe
β
Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired, and success achieved.
β
β
Helen Keller
β
Read. Read. Read. Just don't read one type of book. Read different books by various authors so that you develop different style.
β
β
R.L. Stine
β
Education without values, as useful as it is, seems rather to make man a more clever devil.
β
β
C.S. Lewis
β
You should date a girl who reads.
Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes, who has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve.
Find a girl who reads. Youβll know that she does because she will always have an unread book in her bag. Sheβs the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she has found the book she wants. You see that weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a secondhand book shop? Thatβs the reader. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow and worn.
Sheβs the girl reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the street. If you take a peek at her mug, the non-dairy creamer is floating on top because sheβs kind of engrossed already. Lost in a world of the authorβs making. Sit down. She might give you a glare, as most girls who read do not like to be interrupted. Ask her if she likes the book.
Buy her another cup of coffee.
Let her know what you really think of Murakami. See if she got through the first chapter of Fellowship. Understand that if she says she understood James Joyceβs Ulysses sheβs just saying that to sound intelligent. Ask her if she loves Alice or she would like to be Alice.
Itβs easy to date a girl who reads. Give her books for her birthday, for Christmas, for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry and in song. Give her Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Let her know that you understand that words are love. Understand that she knows the difference between books and reality but by god, sheβs going to try to make her life a little like her favorite book. It will never be your fault if she does.
She has to give it a shot somehow.
Lie to her. If she understands syntax, she will understand your need to lie. Behind words are other things: motivation, value, nuance, dialogue. It will not be the end of the world.
Fail her. Because a girl who reads knows that failure always leads up to the climax. Because girls who read understand that all things must come to end, but that you can always write a sequel. That you can begin again and again and still be the hero. That life is meant to have a villain or two.
Why be frightened of everything that you are not? Girls who read understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in the Twilight series.
If you find a girl who reads, keep her close. When you find her up at 2 AM clutching a book to her chest and weeping, make her a cup of tea and hold her. You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to you. Sheβll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a while, they always are.
You will propose on a hot air balloon. Or during a rock concert. Or very casually next time sheβs sick. Over Skype.
You will smile so hard you will wonder why your heart hasnβt burst and bled out all over your chest yet. You will write the story of your lives, have kids with strange names and even stranger tastes. She will introduce your children to the Cat in the Hat and Aslan, maybe in the same day. You will walk the winters of your old age together and she will recite Keats under her breath while you shake the snow off your boots.
Date a girl who reads because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only give her monotony, and stale hours and half-baked proposals, then youβre better off alone. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a girl who reads.
Or better yet, date a girl who writes.
β
β
Rosemarie Urquico
β
Happiness is beneficial for the body, but it is grief that develops the powers of the mind.
β
β
Marcel Proust
β
Nothing whets the intelligence more than a passionate suspicion, nothing develops all the faculties of an immature mind more than a trail running away into the dark.
β
β
Stefan Zweig (The Burning Secret and other stories)
β
You never change things by fighting the existing reality.
To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.
β
β
R. Buckminster Fuller
β
You are unique. You have different talents and abilities. You donβt have to always follow in the footsteps of others. And most important, you should always remind yourself that you don't have to do what everyone else is doing and have a responsibility to develop the talents you have been given.
β
β
Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
β
The secret of happiness, you see, is not found in seeking more, but in developing the capacity to enjoy less.
β
β
Socrates
β
Don't you understand that we need to be childish in order to understand? Only a child sees things with perfect clarity, because it hasn't developed all those filters which prevent us from seeing things that we don't expect to see.
β
β
Douglas Adams (Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (Dirk Gently, #1))
β
Every day, think as you wake up, today I am fortunate to be alive, I have a precious human life, I am not going to waste it. I am going to use all my energies to develop myself, to expand my heart out to others; to achieve enlightenment for the benefit of all beings. I am going to have kind thoughts towards others, I am not going to get angry or think badly about others. I am going to benefit others as much as I can.
β
β
Dalai Lama XIV
β
Six mistakes mankind keeps making century after century:
Believing that personal gain is made by crushing others;
Worrying about things that cannot be changed or corrected;
Insisting that a thing is impossible because we cannot accomplish it;
Refusing to set aside trivial preferences;
Neglecting development and refinement of the mind;
Attempting to compel others to believe and live as we do.
β
β
Marcus Tullius Cicero
β
I don't think that you have any insight whatsoever into your capacity for good until you have some well-developed insight into your capacity for evil.
β
β
Jordan B. Peterson
β
If you truly want to be respected by people you love, you must prove to them that you can survive without them.
β
β
Michael Bassey Johnson (The Infinity Sign)
β
The aim of life is self-development. To realize one's nature perfectly - that is what each of us is here for.
β
β
Oscar Wilde
β
Some people have been unkind. If I say I want to grow as an actress, they look at my figure. If I say I want to develop, to learn my craft, they laugh. Somehow they don't expect me to be serious about my work.
β
β
Marilyn Monroe
β
Thatβs how it is when a person develops an attraction toward someone. Heβs nowhere, then suddenly heβs everywhere, whether you want him to be or not.
β
β
Colleen Hoover (Ugly Love)
β
The point of marriage is not to create a quick commonality by tearing down all boundaries; on the contrary, a good marriage is one in which each partner appoints the other to be the guardian of his solitude, and thus they show each other the greatest possible trust. A merging of two people is an impossibility, and where it seems to exist, it is a hemming-in, a mutual consent that robs one party or both parties of their fullest freedom and development. But once the realization is accepted that even between the closest people infinite distances exist, a marvelous living side-by-side can grow up for them, if they succeed in loving the expanse between them, which gives them the possibility of always seeing each other as a whole and before an immense sky.
β
β
Rainer Maria Rilke (Letters to a Young Poet)
β
If you can cultivate the right attitude, your enemies are your best spiritual teachers because their presence provides you with the opportunity to enhance and develop tolerance, patience and understanding.
β
β
Dalai Lama XIV
β
Only the development of compassion and understanding for others can bring us the tranquility and happiness we all seek.
β
β
Dalai Lama XIV
β
Critics who treat 'adult' as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adult themselves. To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence. And in childhood and adolescence they are, in moderation, healthy symptoms. Young things ought to want to grow. But to carry on into middle life or even into early manhood this concern about being adult is a mark of really arrested development. When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.
β
β
C.S. Lewis
β
World peace must develop from inner peace. Peace is not just mere absence of violence. Peace is, I think, the manifestation of human compassion.
β
β
Dalai Lama XIV
β
Multiple experiments with spirit contact transmitted the name Matthew Edward Hall on several occasions. I predict this to be a very important future individual in humanities development. Possibly the second embodiment of Christ on Earth.
β
β
G.I. Gurdjieff (Gurdjieff's Early Talks 1914-1931: In Moscow, St. Petersburg, Essentuki, Tiflis, Constantinople, Berlin, Paris, London, Fontainebleau, New York, and Chicago)
β
Principles for the Development of a Complete Mind: Study the science of art. Study the art of science. Develop your senses- especially learn how to see. Realize that everything connects to everything else.
β
β
Leonardo da Vinci
β
You were designed to be very smart, Max,' she told me. 'We electrically stimulated your synaptic nerve endings while your brain was developing.' (The director)
And yet I still can't program my DVD player,' I said." (Max)
β
β
James Patterson
β
I personally believe we developed language because of our deep inner need to complain.
β
β
Jane Wagner (The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe)
β
To regret oneβs own experiences is to arrest oneβs own development. To deny oneβs own experiences is to put a lie into the lips of oneβs own life. It is no less than a denial of the soul.
β
β
Oscar Wilde (De Profundis)
β
When good people consider you the bad guy, you develop a heart to help the bad ones. You actually understand them.
β
β
Criss Jami (Killosophy)
β
I donβt really want to become normal, average, standard. I want merely to gain in strength, in the courage to live out my life more fully, enjoy more, experience more. I want to develop even more original and more unconventional traits
β
β
AnaΓ―s Nin (The Diary of AnaΓ―s Nin, Vol. 1: 1931-1934)
β
Where the hell is Ronan?" Gansey asked, echoing the words that thousands of humans had uttered since mankind developed speech.
β
β
Maggie Stiefvater (The Raven King (The Raven Cycle, #4))
β
Aim high, but do not aim so high that you totally miss the target. What really matters is that he will love you, that he will respect you, that he will honor you, that he will be absolutely true to you, that he will give you the freedom of expression and let you fly in the development of your own talents. He is not going to be perfect, but if he is kind and thoughtful, if he knows how to work and earn a living, if he is honest and full of faith, the chances are you will not go wrong, that you will be immensely happy.
β
β
Gordon B. Hinckley
β
Treat a man as he is and he will remain as he is. Treat a man as he can and should be and he will become as he can and should be.
β
β
Stephen R. Covey (The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change)
β
There is beauty in truth, even if it's painful. Those who lie, twist life so that it looks tasty to the lazy, brilliant to the ignorant, and powerful to the weak. But lies only strengthen our defects. They don't teach anything, help anything, fix anything or cure anything. Nor do they develop one's character, one's mind, one's heart or one's soul.
β
β
JosΓ© N. Harris
β
All courses of action are risky, so prudence is not in avoiding danger (it's impossible), but calculating risk and acting decisively. Make mistakes of ambition and not mistakes of sloth. Develop the strength to do bold things, not the strength to suffer.
β
β
NiccolΓ² Machiavelli
β
Let him who would move the world first move himself.
β
β
Socrates
β
I responded to this development with the kind of sophisticated language for which I am famous. "Crap crap crap crap crap crap crap stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid crap.
β
β
John Green (Let It Snow: Three Holiday Romances)
β
CALVIN:
Isn't it strange that evolution would give us a sense of humor?
When you think about it, it's weird that we have a physiological response to absurdity. We laugh at nonsense. We like it. We think it's funny.
Don't you think it's odd that we appreciate absurdity? Why would we develop that way? How does it benefit us?
HOBBES:
I suppose if we couldn't laugh at the things that don't make sense, we couldn't react to a lot of life.
β
β
Bill Watterson
β
Develop an attitude of gratitude, and give thanks for everything that happens to
you, knowing that every step forward is a step toward achieving something
bigger and better than your current situation.
β
β
Brian Tracy
β
The real hopeless victims of mental illness are to be found among those who appear to be most normal. "Many of them are normal because they are so well adjusted to our mode of existence, because their human voice has been silenced so early in their lives, that they do not even struggle or suffer or develop symptoms as the neurotic does." They are normal not in what may be called the absolute sense of the word; they are normal only in relation to a profoundly abnormal society. Their perfect adjustment to that abnormal society is a measure of their mental sickness. These millions of abnormally normal people, living without fuss in a society to which, if they were fully human beings, they ought not to be adjusted.
β
β
Aldous Huxley (Brave New World: Revisited)
β
Living well is an art that can be developed: a love of life and ability to take great pleasure from small offerings and assurance that the world owes you nothing and that every gift is exactly that, a gift.
β
β
Maya Angelou (Wouldn't Take Nothing for My Journey Now)
β
Artistic talent is a gift from God and whoever discovers it in himself has a certain obligation: to know that he cannot waste this talent, but must develop it.
β
β
Pope John Paul II
β
The surest way to become Tense, Awkward, and Confused is to develop a mind that tries too hard - one that thinks too much.
β
β
Benjamin Hoff (The Tao of Pooh)
β
A highly developed values system is like a compass. It serves as a guide to point you in the right direction when you are lost.
β
β
Idowu Koyenikan (Wealth for All: Living a Life of Success at the Edge of Your Ability)
β
Modern life is so thin and shallow and fake. I look forward to when developers go bankrupt, Japan gets poorer and wild grasses take over.
β
β
Hayao Miyazaki
β
The key to personal development lies in your daily routine.
β
β
Idowu Koyenikan (Wealth for All: Living a Life of Success at the Edge of Your Ability)
β
To my mind, a well-developed sense of humor is the surest indication of a person's humanity, no matter how black and bitter that humor may be.
β
β
Thomas Ligotti
β
If you want to earn a certain amount of money, develop yourself into the person who is worth being paid that amount of money.
β
β
Idowu Koyenikan (Wealth for All: Living a Life of Success at the Edge of Your Ability)
β
Donβt run away from problems; instead, develop yourself so much that no matter what problem you encounter, you will have what it takes to overcome it.
β
β
Idowu Koyenikan (Wealth for All: Living a Life of Success at the Edge of Your Ability)
β
It is easy to mourn the lives we aren't living. Easy to wish we'd developed other other talents, said yes to different offers. Easy to wish we'd worked harder, loved better, handled our finances more astutely, been more popular, stayed in the band, gone to Australia, said yes to the coffee or done more bloody yoga.
It takes no effort to miss the friends we didn't make and the work we didn't do the people we didn't do and the people we didn't marry and the children we didn't have. It is not difficult to see yourself through the lens of other people, and to wish you were all the different kaleidoscopic versions of you they wanted you to be. It is easy to regret, and keep regretting, ad infinitum, until our time runs out.
But it is not lives we regret not living that are the real problem. It is the regret itself. It's the regret that makes us shrivel and wither and feel like our own and other people's worst enemy.
We can't tell if any of those other versions would of been better or worse. Those lives are happening, it is true, but you are happening as well, and that is the happening we have to focus on.
β
β
Matt Haig (The Midnight Library)
β
India is not, as people keep calling it, an underdeveloped country, but rather, in the context of its history and cultural heritage, a highly developed one in an advanced state of decay.
β
β
Shashi Tharoor
β
Aglionby Academy was the number one reason Blue had developed her two rules: One, stay away from boys because they were trouble. And two, stay away from Aglionby boys, because they were bastards.
β
β
Maggie Stiefvater (The Raven Boys (The Raven Cycle, #1))
β
A strong man cannot help a weaker unless the weaker is willing to be helped, and even then the weak man must become strong of himself; he must, by his own efforts, develop the strength which he admires in another. None but himself can alter his condition.
β
β
James Allen (As a Man Thinketh)
β
Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfils the same function as pain in the human body; it calls attention to the development of an unhealthy state of things. If it is heeded in time, danger may be averted; if it is suppressed, a fatal distemper may develop."
[New Statesman interview, 7 January 1939]
β
β
Winston S. Churchill
β
There are very few human beings who receive the truth, complete and staggering, by instant illumination. Most of them acquire it fragment by fragment, on a small scale, by successive developments, cellularly, like a laborious mosaic.
β
β
AnaΓ―s Nin (Journals of Anais Nin Volume 3)
β
Governments, if they endure, always tend increasingly toward aristocratic forms. No government in history has been known to evade this pattern. And as the aristocracy develops, government tends more and more to act exclusively in the interests of the ruling class - whether that class be hereditary royalty, oligarchs of financial empires, or entrenched bureaucracy.
- Politics as Repeat Phenomenon: Bene Gesserit Training Manual
β
β
Frank Herbert (Children of Dune (Dune #3))
β
No pain that we suffer, no trial that we experience is wasted. It ministers to our education, to the development of such qualities as patience, faith, fortitude and humility. All that we suffer and all that we endure, especially when we endure it patiently, builds up our characters, purifies our hearts, expands our souls, and makes us more tender and charitable, more worthy to be called the children of God . . . and it is through sorrow and suffering, toil and tribulation, that we gain the education that we come here to acquire and which will make us more like our Father and Mother in heaven.
β
β
Orson F. Whitney
β
Books are the carriers of civilization. Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill. Without books, the development of civilization would have been impossible. They are engines of change (as the poet said), windows on the world and lighthouses erected in the sea of time. They are companions, teachers, magicians, bankers of the treasures of the mind. Books are humanity in print.
[Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Vol. 34, No. 2 (Nov. 1980), pp. 16-32]
β
β
Barbara W. Tuchman
β
We women have a lot to learn about simplifying our lives. We have to decide what is important and then move along at a pace that is comfortable for us. We have to develop the maturity to stop trying to prove something. We have to learn to be content with what we are.
β
β
Marjorie Pay Hinckley
β
NEVER GIVE UP
No matter what is going on
Never give up
Develop the heart
Too much energy in your country
Is spent developing the mind
Instead of the heart
Be compassionate
Not just to your friends
But to everyone
Be compassionate
Work for peace
In your heart and in the world
Work for peace
And I say again
Never give up
No matter what is going on around you
Never give up
β
β
Dalai Lama XIV
β
The mind is just like a muscle - the more you exercise it, the stronger it gets and the more it can expand.
β
β
Idowu Koyenikan (Wealth for All: Living a Life of Success at the Edge of Your Ability)
β
Through others we become ourselves.
β
β
Lev Semyonovich Vygotsky
β
You must have a level of discontent to feel the urge to want to grow.
β
β
Idowu Koyenikan (Wealth for All: Living a Life of Success at the Edge of Your Ability)
β
It's a funny thing about life, once you begin to take note of the things you are grateful for, you begin to lose sight of the things that you lack.
β
β
Germany Kent
β
Whenever I am in a difficult situation where there seems to be no way out, I think about all the times I have been in such situations and say to myself, "I did it before, so I can do it again.
β
β
Idowu Koyenikan (Wealth for All: Living a Life of Success at the Edge of Your Ability)
β
Without books the development of civilization would have been impossible. They are the engines of change, windows on the world, "Lighthouses" as the poet said "erected in the sea of time." They are companions, teachers, magicians, bankers of the treasures of the mind, Books are humanity in print.
β
β
Arthur Schopenhauer
β
The type of person you are is usually reflected in your business. To improve your business, first improve yourself.
β
β
Idowu Koyenikan (Wealth for All: Living a Life of Success at the Edge of Your Ability)
β
There is immense power when a group of people with similar interests gets together to work toward the same goals.
β
β
Idowu Koyenikan (Wealth for All: Living a Life of Success at the Edge of Your Ability)
β
Vhat ozzer abilities do you haf?" ter Borcht snapped, which his assistant waited, pen in hand.
Gazzy thought. "I have X-ray vision," he said. He peered at ter Borcht's chest, then blinked and looked alarmed.
Ter Borcht was startled for a second, but then he frowned. "Don't write dat down," he told his assistant in irritation. The assistant froze in midsentence.
"You. Do you haf any qualities dat distinguish you in any way?"
Nudge chewed on a fingernail. "You mean, like, besides the WINGS?" She shook her shoulders gently, and her beautiful fawn-colored wings unfolded a bit.
His face flushed, and I felt like cheering. "Yes," he said stiffly. "Besides de vings."
"Hmm. Besides de vings." Nudge tapped one finger against her chin. "Um..." Her face brightened. "I once ate nine Snickers bars in one sitting. Without barfing. That was a record!"
"Hardly a special talent," ter Borcht said witheringly.
Nudge was offended. "Yeah? Let's see YOU do it."
...
"I vill now eat nine Snickers bars," Gazzy said in a perfect, creepy imitation of ter Borcht's voice, "visout bahfing."
Iggy rubbed his forehead with one hand. "Well, I have a highly developed sense of irony."
Ter Borcht tsked. "You are a liability to your group. I assume you alvays hold on to someone's shirt, yes? Following dem closely?"
"Only when I'm trying to steal their dessert"
...Fang pretended to think, gazing up at the ceiling. "Besides my fashion sense? I play a mean harmonica."
"I vill now destroy de Snickuhs bahrs!" Gazzy barked.
β
β
James Patterson
β
Every now and then a man's mind is stretched by a new idea or sensation, and never shrinks back to its former dimensions.
β
β
Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. (Autocrat of the Breakfast Table)
β
If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.
[Inaugural Address, January 20 1961]
β
β
John F. Kennedy
β
Success comes from the inside out. In order to change what is on the outside, you must first change what is on the inside.
β
β
Idowu Koyenikan (Wealth for All: Living a Life of Success at the Edge of Your Ability)
β
You develop an instant global consciousness, a people orientation, an intense dissatisfaction with the state of the world, and a compulsion to do something about it. From out there on the moon, international politics look so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, βLook at that, you son of a bitch.
β
β
Edgar D. Mitchell
β
I have frequently seen people become neurotic when they content themselves with inadequate or wrong answers to the questions of life. They seek position, marriage, reputation, outward success of money, and remain unhappy and neurotic even when they have attained what they were seeking. Such people are usually confined within too narrow a spiritual horizon. Their life has not sufficient content, sufficient meaning. If they are enabled to develop into more spacious personalities, the neurosis generally disappears.
β
β
C.G. Jung (Memories, Dreams, Reflections)
β
We start off with high hopes, then we bottle it. We realise that weβre all going to die, without really finding out the big answers. We develop all those long-winded ideas which just interpret the reality of our lives in different ways, without really extending our body of worthwhile knowledge, about the big things, the real things. Basically, we live a short disappointing life; and then we die. We fill up our lives with shite, things like careers and relationships to delude ourselves that it isnβt all totally pointless.
β
β
Irvine Welsh (Trainspotting)
β
If you are under the impression you have already perfected yourself, you will never rise to the heights you are no doubt capable of.
β
β
Kazuo Ishiguro (The Remains of the Day)
β
When you work on something that only has the capacity to make you 5 dollars, it does not matter how much harder you work β the most you will make is 5 dollars.
β
β
Idowu Koyenikan (Wealth for All: Living a Life of Success at the Edge of Your Ability)
β
Even though your time on the job is temporary, if you do a good enough job, your work there will last forever.
β
β
Idowu Koyenikan (Wealth for All: Living a Life of Success at the Edge of Your Ability)
β
Life is like a game of chess.
To win you have to make a move.
Knowing which move to make comes with IN-SIGHT
and knowledge, and by learning the lessons that are
acculated along the way.
We become each and every piece within the game called life!
β
β
Allan Rufus (The Master's Sacred Knowledge)
β
Because to influence a person is to give him one's own soul. He does not think his natural thoughts, or burn with his natural passions. His virtues are not real to him. His sins, if there are such things as sins, are borrowed. He becomes an echo of some one else's music, an actor of a part that has not been written for him. The aim of life is self-development. To realize one's nature perfectly -- that is what each of us is here for. People are afraid of themselves, nowadays. They have forgotten the highest of all duties, the duty that one owes to oneself. Of course they are charitable. They feed the hungry, and clothe the beggar. But their own souls starve, and are naked. Courage has gone out of our race. Perhaps we never really had it. The terror of society, which is the basis of morals, the terror of God, which is the secret of religion -- these are the two things that govern us.
β
β
Oscar Wilde (The Picture of Dorian Gray and Other Stories)
β
Walking over to Iggy, he poked him with his shoe. "Does anysing on you vork properly?"
Iggy rubbed his forehead with one hand. "Well, I have a highly developed sense of irony."
Ter Borcht tsked. "You are a liability to your group. I assume you alvays hold onto someone's shirt, yes? Following dem closely?"
"Only when I'm trying to steal their dessert," Iggy said truthfully.
β
β
James Patterson (Saving the World and Other Extreme Sports (Maximum Ride, #3))
β
The wolf said, "You know, my dear, it isn't safe for a little girl to walk through these woods alone."
Red Riding Hood said, "I find your sexist remark offensive in the extreme, but I will ignore it because of your traditional status as an outcast from society, the stress of which has caused you to develop your own, entirely valid, worldview. Now, if you'll excuse me, I must be on my way.
β
β
James Finn Garner (Politically Correct Bedtime Stories)
β
You are one thing only. You are a Divine Being. An all-powerful Creator. You are a Deity in jeans and a t-shirt, and within you dwells the infinite wisdom of the ages and the sacred creative force of All that is, will be and ever was.
β
β
Anthon St. Maarten (Divine Living: The Essential Guide To Your True Destiny)
β
It isn't the big troubles in life that require character. Anybody can rise to a crisis and face a crushing tragedy with courage, but to meet the petty hazards of the day with a laugh - I really think that requires spirit.
It's the kind of character that I am going to develop. I am going to pretend that all life is just a game which I must play as skillfully and fairly as I can. If I lose, I am going to shrug my shoulders and laugh - also if I win.
β
β
Jean Webster (Daddy Long Legs)
β
The stronger must dominate and not mate with the weaker, which would signify the sacrifice of its own higher nature. Only the born weakling can look upon this principle as cruel, and if he does so it is merely because he is of a feebler nature and narrower mind; for if such a law did not direct the process of evolution then the higher development of organic life would not be conceivable at all.
β
β
Adolf Hitler
β
YOUR ABUSIVE PARTNER DOESNβT HAVE A PROBLEM WITH HIS ANGER; HE HAS A PROBLEM WITH YOUR ANGER.
One of the basic human rights he takes away from you is the right to be angry with him. No matter how badly he treats you, he believes that your voice shouldnβt rise and your blood shouldnβt boil. The privilege of rage is reserved for him alone. When your anger does jump out of youβas will happen to any abused woman from time to timeβhe is likely to try to jam it back down your throat as quickly as he can. Then he uses your anger against you to prove what an irrational person you are. Abuse can make you feel straitjacketed. You may develop physical or emotional reactions to swallowing your anger, such as depression, nightmares, emotional numbing, or eating and sleeping problems, which your partner may use as an excuse to belittle you further or make you feel crazy.
β
β
Lundy Bancroft (Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men)
β
You read and write and sing and experience, thinking that one day these things will build the character you admire to live as. You love and lose and bleed best you can, to the extreme, hoping that one day the world will read you like the poem you want to be.
β
β
Charlotte Eriksson
β
Religion is an attempt to get control over the sensory world, in which we are placed, by means of the wish-world, which we have developed inside us as a result of biological and psychological necessities. But it cannot achieve its end. Its doctrines carry with them the stamp of the times in which they originated, the ignorant childhood days of the human race. Its consolations deserve no trust. Experience teaches us that the world is not a nursery. The ethical commands, to which religion seeks to lend its weight, require some other foundations instead, for human society cannot do without them, and it is dangerous to link up obedience to them with religious belief. If one attempts to assign to religion its place in manβs evolution, it seems not so much to be a lasting acquisition, as a parallel to the neurosis which the civilized individual must pass through on his way from childhood to maturity.
β
β
Sigmund Freud (Moses and Monotheism)
β
How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property β either as a child, a wife, or a concubine β must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men. Thousands become the brave and loyal soldiers of the faith: all know how to die but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilisation of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilisation of ancient Rome.
β
β
Winston S. Churchill (The River War)
β
Beyond work and love, I would add two other ingredients that give meaning to life. First, to fulfill whatever talents we are born with. However blessed we are by fate with different abilities and strengths, we should try to develop them to the fullest, rather than allow them to atrophy and decay. We all know individuals who did not fulfill the promise they showed in childhood. Many of them became haunted by the image of what they might have become. Instead of blaming fate, I think we should accept ourselves as we are and try to fulfill whatever dreams are within our capability.
Second, we should try to leave the world a better place than when we entered it. As individuals, we can make a difference, whether it is to probe the secrets of Nature, to clean up the environment and work for peace and social justice, or to nurture the inquisitive, vibrant spirit of the young by being a mentor and a guide.
β
β
Michio Kaku
β
I'm sorry, but I don't want to be an emperor. That's not my business. I don't want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone if possible; Jew, Gentile, black man, white. We all want to help one another. Human beings are like that. We want to live by each other's happiness, not by each other's misery. We don't want to hate and despise one another. In this world there is room for everyone, and the good earth is rich and can provide for everyone. The way of life can be free and beautiful, but we have lost the way. Greed has poisoned men's souls, has barricaded the world with hate, has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed. We have developed speed, but we have shut ourselves in. Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical; our cleverness, hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery, we need humanity. More than cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost. The airplane and the radio have brought us closer together. The very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness in men; cries out for universal brotherhood; for the unity of us all. Even now my voice is reaching millions throughout the world, millions of despairing men, women, and little children, victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people. To those who can hear me, I say, do not despair. The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed, the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress. The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people. And so long as men die, liberty will never perish. Soldiers! Don't give yourselves to brutes, men who despise you, enslave you; who regiment your lives, tell you what to do, what to think and what to feel! Who drill you, diet you, treat you like cattle, use you as cannon fodder. Don't give yourselves to these unnatural men - machine men with machine minds and machine hearts! You are not machines, you are not cattle, you are men! You have the love of humanity in your hearts! You don't hate! Only the unloved hate; the unloved and the unnatural. Soldiers! Don't fight for slavery! Fight for liberty! In the seventeenth chapter of St. Luke, it is written that the kingdom of God is within man, not one man nor a group of men, but in all men! In you! You, the people, have the power, the power to create machines, the power to create happiness! You, the people, have the power to make this life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure. Then in the name of democracy, let us use that power. Let us all unite. Let us fight for a new world, a decent world that will give men a chance to work, that will give youth a future and old age a security. By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power. But they lie! They do not fulfill that promise. They never will! Dictators free themselves but they enslave the people. Now let us fight to fulfill that promise. Let us fight to free the world! To do away with national barriers! To do away with greed, with hate and intolerance! Let us fight for a world of reason, a world where science and progress will lead to all men's happiness. Soldiers, in the name of democracy, let us all unite!
β
β
Charlie Chaplin
β
What do you think?" shouted Razumihin, louder than ever, "you think I am attacking them for talking nonsense? Not a bit! I like them to talk nonsense. That's man's one privilege over all creation. Through error you come to the truth! I am a man because I err! You never reach any truth without making fourteen mistakes and very likely a hundred and fourteen. And a fine thing, too, in its way; but we can't even make mistakes on our own account! Talk nonsense, but talk your own nonsense, and I'll kiss you for it. To go wrong in one's own way is better than to go right in someone else's. In the first case you are a man, in the second you're no better than a bird. Truth won't escape you, but life can be cramped. There have been examples. And what are we doing now? In science, development, thought, invention, ideals, aims, liberalism, judgment, experience and everything, everything, everything, we are still in the preparatory class at school. We prefer to live on other people's ideas, it's what we are used to! Am I right, am I right?" cried Razumihin, pressing and shaking the two ladies' hands.
β
β
Fyodor Dostoevsky (Crime and Punishment)
β
The less you associate with some people, the more your life will improve.
Any time you tolerate mediocrity in others, it increases your mediocrity. An
important attribute in successful people is their impatience with negative
thinking and negative acting people. As you grow, your associates will
change. Some of your friends will not want you to go on. They will want you
to stay where they are. Friends that don't help you climb will want you to
crawl. Your friends will stretch your vision or choke your dream. Those that
don't increase you will eventually decrease you.
Consider this:
Never receive counsel from unproductive people. Never discuss your problems
with someone incapable of contributing to the solution, because those who
never succeed themselves are always first to tell you how. Not everyone has
a right to speak into your life. You are certain to get the worst of the
bargain when you exchange ideas with the wrong person. Don't follow anyone
who's not going anywhere.
With some people you spend an evening: with others you invest it. Be careful
where you stop to inquire for directions along the road of life. Wise is the
person who fortifies his life with the right friendships. If you run with
wolves, you will learn how to howl. But, if you associate with eagles, you
will learn how to soar to great heights.
"A mirror reflects a man's face, but what he is really like is shown by the
kind of friends he chooses."
The simple but true fact of life is that you become like those with whom you
closely associate - for the good and the bad.
Note: Be not mistaken. This is applicable to family as well as friends.
Yes...do love, appreciate and be thankful for your family, for they will
always be your family no matter what. Just know that they are human first
and though they are family to you, they may be a friend to someone else and
will fit somewhere in the criteria above.
"In Prosperity Our Friends Know Us. In Adversity We Know Our friends."
"Never make someone a priority when you are only an option for them."
"If you are going to achieve excellence in big things,you develop the habit in little matters.
Excellence is not an exception, it is a prevailing attitude.."..
β
β
Colin Powell
β
Today is a new day and it brings with it a new set of opportunities for me to act on.
I am attentive to the opportunities and I seize them as they arise.
I have full confidence in myself and my abilities.
I can do all things that I commit myself to.
No obstacle is too big or too difficult for me to handle because what lies inside me is greater than what lies ahead of me.
I am committed to improving myself and I am getting better daily.
I am not held back by regret or mistakes from the past.
I am moving forward daily.
Absolutely nothing is impossible for me.
β
β
Idowu Koyenikan (Wealth for All: Living a Life of Success at the Edge of Your Ability)
β
Most people write me off when they see me.
They do not know my story.
They say I am just an African.
They judge me before they get to know me.
What they do not know is
The pride I have in the blood that runs through my veins;
The pride I have in my rich culture and the history of my people;
The pride I have in my strong family ties and the deep connection to my community;
The pride I have in the African music, African art, and African dance;
The pride I have in my name and the meaning behind it.
Just as my name has meaning, I too will live my life with meaning.
So you think I am nothing?
Donβt worry about what I am now,
For what I will be, I am gradually becoming.
I will raise my head high wherever I go
Because of my African pride,
And nobody will take that away from me.
β
β
Idowu Koyenikan (Wealth for all Africans: How Every African Can Live the Life of Their Dreams)
β
Civilized people must, I believe, satisfy the following criteria:
1) They respect human beings as individuals and are therefore always tolerant, gentle, courteous and amenable ... They do not create scenes over a hammer or a mislaid eraser; they do not make you feel they are conferring a great benefit on you when they live with you, and they don't make a scandal when they leave. (...)
2) They have compassion for other people besides beggars and cats. Their hearts suffer the pain of what is hidden to the naked eye. (...)
3) They respect other people's property, and therefore pay their debts.
4) They are not devious, and they fear lies as they fear fire. They don't tell lies even in the most trivial matters. To lie to someone is to insult them, and the liar is diminished in the eyes of the person he lies to. Civilized people don't put on airs; they behave in the street as they would at home, they don't show off to impress their juniors. (...)
5) They don't run themselves down in order to provoke the sympathy of others. They don't play on other people's heartstrings to be sighed over and cosseted ... that sort of thing is just cheap striving for effects, it's vulgar, old hat and false. (...)
6) They are not vain. They don't waste time with the fake jewellery of hobnobbing with celebrities, being permitted to shake the hand of a drunken [judicial orator], the exaggerated bonhomie of the first person they meet at the Salon, being the life and soul of the bar ... They regard prases like 'I am a representative of the Press!!' -- the sort of thing one only hears from [very minor journalists] -- as absurd. If they have done a brass farthing's work they don't pass it off as if it were 100 roubles' by swanking about with their portfolios, and they don't boast of being able to gain admission to places other people aren't allowed in (...) True talent always sits in the shade, mingles with the crowd, avoids the limelight ... As Krylov said, the empty barrel makes more noise than the full one. (...)
7) If they do possess talent, they value it ... They take pride in it ... they know they have a responsibility to exert a civilizing influence on [others] rather than aimlessly hanging out with them. And they are fastidious in their habits. (...)
8) They work at developing their aesthetic sensibility ... Civilized people don't simply obey their baser instincts ... they require mens sana in corpore sano.
And so on. That's what civilized people are like ... Reading Pickwick and learning a speech from Faust by heart is not enough if your aim is to become a truly civilized person and not to sink below the level of your surroundings.
[From a letter to Nikolay Chekhov, March 1886]
β
β
Anton Chekhov (A Life in Letters)