“
Most of what passes for legitimate entertainment is inferior or foolish and only caters to or exploits people's weaknesses. Avoid being one of the mob who indulges in such pastimes. Your life is too short and you have important things to do. Be discriminating about what images and ideas you permit into your mind. If you yourself don't choose what thoughts and images you expose yourself to, someone else will, and their motives may not be the highest. It is the easiest thing in the world to slide imperceptibly into vulgarity. But there's no need for that to happen if you determine not to waste your time and attention on mindless pap.
”
”
Epictetus (The Art of Living: The Classical Manual on Virtue, Happiness and Effectiveness)
“
Never judge someone's character based on the words of another. Instead, study the motives behind the words of the person casting the bad judgment. An honest woman can sell tangerines all day and remain a good person until she dies, but there will always be naysayers who will try to convince you otherwise. Perhaps this woman did not give them something for free, or at a discount. Perhaps too, that she refused to stand with them when they were wrong — or just stood up for something she felt was right. And also, it could be that some bitter women are envious of her, or that she rejected the advances of some very proud men. Always trust your heart. If the Creator stood before a million men with the light of a million lamps, only a few would truly see him because truth is already alive in their hearts. Truth can only be seen by those with truth in them. He who does not have Truth in his heart, will always be blind to her.
”
”
Suzy Kassem (Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem)
“
For a long while I have believed – this is perhaps my version of Sir Darius Xerxes Cama’s belief in a fourth function of outsideness – that in every generation there are a few souls, call them lucky or cursed, who are simply born not belonging, who come into the world semi-detached, if you like, without strong affiliation to family or location or nation or race; that there may even be millions, billions of such souls, as many non-belongers as belongers, perhaps; that, in sum, the phenomenon may be as “natural” a manifestation of human nature as its opposite, but one that has been mostly frustrated, throughout human history, by lack of opportunity.
And not only by that: for those who value stability, who fear transience, uncertainly, change, have erected a powerful system of stigmas and taboos against rootlessness, that disruptive, anti-social force, so that we mostly conform, we pretend to be motivated by loyalties and solidarities we do not really feel, we hide our secret identities beneath the false skins of those identities which bear the belongers’ seal of approval.
But the truth leaks out in our dreams; alone in our beds (because we are all alone at night, even if we do not sleep by ourselves), we soar, we fly, we flee. And in the waking dreams our societies permit, in our myths, our arts, our songs, we celebrate the non-belongers, the different ones, the outlaws, the freaks.
What we forbid ourselves we pay good money to watch, in a playhouse or a movie theater, or to read about between the secret covers of a book. Our libraries, our palaces of entertainment tell the truth. The tramp, the assassin, the rebel, the thief, the mutant, the outcast, the delinquent, the devil, the sinner, the traveler, the gangster, the runner, the mask: if we did not recognize in them our least-fulfilled needs, we would not invent them over and over again, in every place, in every language, in every time.
”
”
Salman Rushdie (The Ground Beneath Her Feet)
“
Entertainment is temporary happiness, but the real happiness is permanent entertainment.
”
”
Amit Kalantri
“
stories entertain
engage, outrage
uplift, help us
overcome
our troubles
. . .
stories activate, motivate,
celebrate, cerebrate,
snare our fates
and share our great
incarnations of hope
”
”
Laurie Halse Anderson (Shout)
“
She’s an original! She doesn’t need to compete, copy, or envy other women. The confidence that’s within her won’t allow her to stoop that low. She’s a Queen! And jealousy isn’t something that she cares to entertain. Insecurity isn’t in her DNA. She shines! She succeeds! She’s a quality woman with purpose! She empowers, inspires, motivates, and celebrates other women. But depending on how you feel about yourself, you’ll either admire and respect her or hate on her. Listen, it’s okay to acknowledge other Queens! Don’t be an undercover hater. Have self-confidence and allow YOUR light to shine.
”
”
Stephanie Lahart
“
Some years ago, I was lucky enough invited to a gathering of great and good people: artists and scientists, writers and discoverers of things. And I felt that at any moment they would realise that I didn’t qualify to be there, among these people who had really done things.
On my second or third night there, I was standing at the back of the hall, while a musical entertainment happened, and I started talking to a very nice, polite, elderly gentleman about several things, including our shared first name. And then he pointed to the hall of people, and said words to the effect of, “I just look at all these people, and I think, what the heck am I doing here? They’ve made amazing things. I just went where I was sent.”
And I said, “Yes. But you were the first man on the moon. I think that counts for something.”
And I felt a bit better. Because if Neil Armstrong felt like an imposter, maybe everyone did. Maybe there weren’t any grown-ups, only people who had worked hard and also got lucky and were slightly out of their depth, all of us doing the best job we could, which is all we can really hope for.
”
”
Neil Gaiman
“
...for those who value stability, who fear transience, uncertainty, change, have erected a powerful system of stigmas and taboos against rootlessness, that disruptive, anti-social force, so that we mostly conform, we pretend to be motivated by loyalties and solidarities we do not really feel, we hide our secret identities beneath the false skins of those identities which bear the belongers' seal of approval. But the truth leaks out in our dreams; alone in our beds (because we are all alone at night, even if we do not sleep by ourselves), we soar, we fly, we flee. And in the waking dreams our societies permit, in our myths, our arts, our songs, we celbrate the non-belongers, the different ones, the outlaws, the freaks. What we forbid ourselves we pay good money to watch, in a playhouse or movie theatre, or to read about between the secret covers of a book. Our libraries, our palaces of entertainment tell the truth. The tramp, the assassin, the rebel, the thief, the mutant, the outcast, the delinquent, the devil, the sinner, the traveller, the gangster, the runner, the mask: if we did not recognize in them our least-fulfilled needs, we would not invent them over and over again, in every place, in every language, in every time.
”
”
Salman Rushdie (The Ground Beneath Her Feet)
“
another motive as well—namely, to preserve her voice, which had a quality of expressiveness I have rarely encountered. Customarily she spoke with a soft tone, as one might expect of a woman who has made a career of entertaining men.
”
”
Arthur Golden (Memoirs of a Geisha)
“
Routine ruins the life, variety vitalise the life.
”
”
Amit Kalantri (Wealth of Words)
“
Let us suppose that the great empire of China, with all its myriads of inhabitants, was suddenly swallowed up by an earthquake, and let us consider how a man of humanity in Europe, who had no sort of connection with that part of the world, would be affected upon receiving intelligence of this dreadful calamity. He would, I imagine, first of all, express very strongly his sorrow for the misfortune of that unhappy people, he would make many melancholy reflections upon the precariousness of human life, and the vanity of all the labours of man, which could thus be annihilated in a moment. He would too, perhaps, if he was a man of speculation, enter into many reasonings concerning the effects which this disaster might produce upon the commerce of Europe, and the trade and business of the world in general. And when all this fine philosophy was over, when all these humane sentiments had been once fairly expressed, he would pursue his business or his pleasure, take his repose or his diversion, with the same ease and tranquillity, as if no such accident had happened. The most frivolous disaster which could befall himself would occasion a more real disturbance. If he was to lose his little finger to-morrow, he would not sleep to-night; but, provided he never saw them, he will snore with the most profound security over the ruin of a hundred millions of his brethren, and the destruction of that immense multitude seems plainly an object less interesting to him, than this paltry misfortune of his own. To prevent, therefore, this paltry misfortune to himself, would a man of humanity be willing to sacrifice the lives of a hundred millions of his brethren, provided he had never seen them? Human nature startles with horror at the thought, and the world, in its greatest depravity and corruption, never produced such a villain as could be capable of entertaining it. But what makes this difference? When our passive feelings are almost always so sordid and so selfish, how comes it that our active principles should often be so generous and so noble? When we are always so much more deeply affected by whatever concerns ourselves, than by whatever concerns other men; what is it which prompts the generous, upon all occasions, and the mean upon many, to sacrifice their own interests to the greater interests of others? It is not the soft power of humanity, it is not that feeble spark of benevolence which Nature has lighted up in the human heart, that is thus capable of counteracting the strongest impulses of self-love. It is a stronger power, a more forcible motive, which exerts itself upon such occasions. It is reason, principle, conscience, the inhabitant of the breast, the man within, the great judge and arbiter of our conduct.
”
”
Adam Smith (The Theory of Moral Sentiments)
“
Your personal thoughts carry so much power. It’s important to be mindful of what you spend your time thinking about. Make sure that your thoughts aren’t defeating you or your purpose in life. Fear, doubt, and a negative attitude will continually hold you back. Your journey may be a bumpy one, but I encourage you to never give up! Giving up only does one thing: It keeps you from ever knowing what could have been. Don’t allow your uncertain attitude to be the reason why you don’t succeed. It’s a very sad thing to live your life with regrets. So therefore, giving up is NOT an option for you. Don’t even entertain those thoughts. KEEP MOVING FORWARD, no matter what!
”
”
Stephanie Lahart
“
And most of us feel powerless. Motivated but powerless. Entertained but powerless. Informed but powerless. Fleetingly content, most of the time broke, sometimes hopeful, but ultimately powerless. And angry. Don't forget angry.
”
”
Jonathan Evison (Lawn Boy)
“
In business, sport, entertainment and beyond an idea is worth next to nothing. The energy, effort, passion, talent, tenacity, strategy, resilience and resourcefulness to see it through and make something of it is worth everything.
”
”
Rasheed Ogunlaru
“
Pages entertain me more than pictures do.
”
”
Amit Kalantri
“
Creativity without discipline will struggle, creativity with discipline will succeed.
”
”
Amit Kalantri (Wealth of Words)
“
Work hard in Silence, Let success make the noise.
”
”
Aamir Sarfraz (aamir rajput khan)
“
This is what made the difference, they used social networking for entertainment and I used it for business.
”
”
Amit Kalantri
“
Dan Ariely, author of Predictably Irrational, a book that offers an entertaining and engaging overview of behavioral economics.
”
”
Daniel H. Pink (Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us)
“
I realised that I had healed when my mind could no longer entertain dark environments, emotions or mindsets.
”
”
Mitta Xinindlu
“
If modern scholars overlook the entertainment motive, dominant in the Iliad, and treat Homer as a Virgil, Dante, or Milton, rather than as a Shakespeare or Cervantes, they are doing him a great disservice. The Iliad, Don Quixote and Shakespeare’s later plays are life—tragedy salted with humour; the Aeneid, the Inferno and Paradise Lost are literary works of almost superhuman eloquence, written for fame not profit, and seldom read except as a solemn intellectual task. The Iliad, and its later companion-piece, the Odyssey, deserve to be rescued from the classroom curse which has lain heavily on them throughout the past twenty-six centuries, and become entertainment once more; which is what I have attempted here. How this curse fell on them can be simply explained.
”
”
Robert Graves (The Anger of Achilles: Homer's Iliad)
“
Printed works do not take up mental space simply by virtue of being there; attention must be paid or their content, whether simple or complex, can never be truly assimilated. The willed attention demanded by print is the antithesis of the reflexive distraction encouraged by infotainment media, whether one is talking about the tunes on an iPod, a picture flashing briefly on a home page, a text message, a video game, or the latest offering of "reality" TV. That all of these sources of information and entertainment are capable of simultaneously engendering distraction and absorption accounts for much of their snakelike charm.
”
”
Susan Jacoby (The Age of American Unreason)
“
The easiest person to like is a SanPhleg. The overpowering and often obnoxious tendencies of a Sanguine are offset by the gracious, easygoing Phlegmatic. SanPhlegs are happy-go-lucky people whose carefree spirit and good humor make them lighthearted entertainers. Helping people is their regular business, along with various forms of sales. The least extrovertish of the Sanguines, they often react to their environment and circumstances rather than being proactive and self-motivated.
”
”
Tim LaHaye (Spirit-Controlled Temperament)
“
Artists of today can be inspired by the past, but they have to apply present methods if they want a future in music.
”
”
Loren Weisman
“
One's best work comes when we are fully alive, happy, and inspired.
”
”
Eric Schiffer (Emotionally Charged Learning: Secrets to Competitive Advantages for the Second Half of the Knowledge/Entertainment-Based Economy)
“
When you judge your art with number of likes you get in response to it, you're killing the artist within, and giving rise to an entertainer.
”
”
Sameer Khan (Eerie Edges)
“
Thinking minds doesn't get bored.
”
”
Amit Kalantri
“
Always let your talent do the talking. Never your tantrums.
”
”
Rasheed Ogunlaru
“
Non-narrative action: Does not depend on a narrative for the action to be right—the narrative is just there to motivate, entertain, or prompt action. See flâneur.
”
”
Nassim Nicholas Taleb (Antifragile: Things That Gain From Disorder)
“
Will you offer entertainment, education, inspiration, information, or motivation?
”
”
Sean Cannell (YouTube Secrets: The Ultimate Guide to Growing Your Following and Making Money as a Video Influencer)
“
As a general man I tried watching movies, playing sports, going to picnics and other entertainments but I still got bored, then I tried heroism and now I am hero, and I never get bored.
”
”
Amit Kalantri
“
If the urge to be entertained so much, to travel so much, to buy so much, and to arm ourselves so much no longer motivated our behavior, could our society as it is today still function?
”
”
Henri J.M. Nouwen (Making All Things New: An Invitation to the Spiritual Life)
“
Sometimes it seems as if our society has become dependent on the maintenance of these artificial worries. What would happen if we stopped worrying? If the urge to be entertained so much, to travel so much, to buy so much, and to arm ourselves so much no longer motivated our behavior, could our society as it is today still function? The tragedy is that we are indeed caught in a web of false expectations and contrived needs. Our occupations and preoccupations fill our external and internal lives to the brim. They prevent the Spirit of God from breathing freely in us and thus renewing our lives.
”
”
Henri J.M. Nouwen (The Spiritual Life: Eight Essential Titles by Henri Nouwen)
“
I just had way too much energy for six A.M. Too much motivation. It was like the drunk side of my brain was trying to act distracting and entertaining, so the business side wouldn’t realize it was being held hostage by a drunk. I
”
”
Augusten Burroughs (Dry)
“
Eat your greens; put your napkin on your lap; if it doesn't belong to you, don't touch it. No running in the house (no, not even with scissors); call your mama; I love you and shut the door before all my ideas get out. - to my boys
”
”
Debbie Seagle (Coffee Cups & Wine Glasses: Hilarious Secrets to Heal a Broken Heart & Get Your Life Back! Includes Life Hacks & Journal Prompts for Happiness, Motivation & Brilliant Entertainment. (DOIT Books))
“
A father’s success does not depend upon his ability to work and provide, to guard and protect, or to lecture and discipline.
A father’s success does not depend upon his ability to guide and govern, to instruct and demonstrate, or to remedy and repair.
A father’s success does not depend upon his ability to understand and relate, to adapt and change, or to entertain and play.
A father’s success does, however, greatly depend upon his ability to love and be loved.
”
”
Richelle E. Goodrich (Being Bold: Quotes, Poetry, & Motivations for Every Day of the Year)
“
Marketing, after all, is really theater,” Sculley wrote. “It’s like staging a performance. The way to motivate people is to get them interested in your product, to entertain them, and to turn your product into an incredibly important event.
”
”
Leander Kahney (Inside Steve's Brain)
“
Most of what passes for legitimate entertainment is inferior or foolish and only caters to or exploits people’s weakness.
If you yourself don’t choose what thoughts and images you expose yourself to, someone else will, and their motives may not be the highest.
”
”
Epictetus
“
The apps start out with seemingly simple motivations, as entertainment that could lead to a business: Facebook is for connecting with friends and family, YouTube is for watching videos, Twitter is for sharing what’s happening now, and Instagram is for sharing visual moments. And then, as they enmesh themselves in everyday life, the rewards systems of their products, fueled by the companies’ own attempts to measure their success, have a deeper impact on how people behave than any branding or marketing could ever achieve.
”
”
Sarah Frier (No Filter: The Inside Story of Instagram)
“
I thought to do something good by giving an interview to People, which was exceedingly foolish of me. I asked Aaron [Asher] to tell you that the Good Intentions Paving Company had fucked up again. The young interviewer turned my opinions inside out, cut out the praises and made it all sound like disavowal, denunciation and excommunication. Well, we're both used to this kind of thing, and beyond shock. In agreeing to take the call, and make a statement I was simply muddle-headed. But if I had been interviewed by an angel for the Seraphim and Cherubim Weekly I'd have said, as I actually did say to the crooked little slut, that you were one of our very best and most interesting writers. I would have added that I was greatly stimulated and entertained by your last novel, and that of course after three decades I understood perfectly well what you were saying about the writer's trade - how could I not understand, or miss suffering the same pains. Still our diagrams are different, and the briefest description of the differences would be that you seem to have accepted the Freudian explanation: A writer is motivated by his desire for fame, money and sexual opportunities. Whereas I have never taken this trinity of motives seriously. But this is an explanatory note and I don't intend to make a rabbinic occasion of it. Please accept my regrets and apologies, also my best wishes. I'm afraid there's nothing we can do about the journalists; we can only hope that they will die off as the deerflies do towards the end of August.
”
”
Saul Bellow
“
their footfalls? Finally some combination thereof, or these many things as permutations of each other—as alternative vocabularies? However it was, by January I was winnowed, and soon dispensed with pills and analysis (the pills I was weaned from gradually), and took up my unfinished novel again, Our Lady of the Forest, about a girl who sees the Virgin Mary, a man who wants a miracle, a priest who suffers spiritual anxiety, and a woman in thrall to cynicism. It seems to me now that the sum of those figures mirrors the shape of my psyche before depression, and that the territory of the novel forms a map of my psyche in the throes of gathering disarray. The work as code for the inner life, and as fodder for my own biographical speculations. Depression, in this conceit, might be grand mal writer’s block. Rather than permitting its disintegration at the hands of assorted unburied truths risen into light as narrative, the ego incites a tempest in the brain, leaving the novelist to wander in a whiteout with his half-finished manuscript awry in his arms, where the wind might blow it away. I don’t find this facile. It seems true—or true for me—that writing fiction is partly psychoanalysis, a self-induced and largely unconscious version. This may be why stories threaten readers with the prospect of everything from the merest dart wound to a serious breach in the superstructure. To put it another way, a good story addresses the psyche directly, while the gatekeeper ego, aware of this trespass—of a message sent so daringly past its gate, a compelling dream insinuating inward—can only quaver through a story’s reading and hope its ploys remains unilluminated. Against a story of penetrating virtuosity—The Metamorphosis, or Lear on the heath—this gatekeeper can only futilely despair, and comes away both revealed and provoked, and even, at times, shattered. In lesser fiction—fiction as entertainment, narcissism, product, moral tract, or fad—there is also some element of the unconscious finding utterance, chiefly because it has the opportunity, but in these cases its clarity and force are diluted by an ill-conceived motive, and so it must yield control of the story to the transparently self-serving ego, to that ostensible self with its own small agenda in art as well as in life. * * * Like
”
”
David Guterson (Descent: A Memoir of Madness (Kindle Single))
“
Avoid Most Popular Entertainment Most of what passes for legitimate entertainment is inferior or foolish and only caters to or exploits people’s weaknesses. Avoid being one of the mob who indulges in such pastimes. Your life is too short and you have important things to do. Be discriminating about what images and ideas you permit into your mind. If you yourself don’t choose what thoughts and images you expose yourself to, someone else will, and their motives may not be the highest. It is the easiest thing in the world to slide imperceptibly into vulgarity. But there’s no need for that to happen if you determine not to waste your time and attention on mindless pap.
”
”
Epictetus (The Art of Living: The Classical Manual on Virtue, Happiness, and Effectiveness)
“
You can recognize the people who live for others by the haunted look on the faces of the others. I would so much rather you wrote a book in order to entertain yourself than to help me. Or if your subject matter is darker and more serious, I would prefer that you made your art in order to save yourself or to relive yourself of some great psychic burden, rather than to save or relieve us.
”
”
Elizabeth Gilbert (Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear)
“
As in Plato’s myth of the cave, some of us don't stay long enough in one single place, relationship, journey or country but that does not mean we evade reality or makes us unstable. It simply means, we are not very keen to entertain ourselves, for long periods of time, with the same old same old reflections or shadows on the wall, when aware of the existence of the sun; the price for enlightenment, solitude
”
”
EfratCybulkiewicz
“
With the invention of the city and its powerful combination of economies of scale coupled to innovation and wealth creation came the great divisions of society. Our present social network structures barely existed in their present form until urban communities evolved. Hunter-gatherers were significantly less hierarchical, more egalitarian and community oriented than we are. The struggle and tension between unbridled individual self-enhancement and the care and concern for the less fortunate has been a major thread running throughout human history, especially over the past two hundred years. Nevertheless, it seems that without the motive of self-interest our entrepreneurial free market economy would collapse. The system we have evolved critically relies on people continually wanting new cars and new cell phones, new widgets and gadgets, new clothes and new washing machines, new thrills, new entertainment, and pretty much new everything, even when they already have enough of “everything.” It may not be a pretty picture and it doesn’t work for everyone, but so far, it’s worked remarkably well for most of us, and apparently most of us seem to want it to continue. Whether it can is a topic I’ll return to in the last chapter.
”
”
Geoffrey West (Scale: The Universal Laws of Growth, Innovation, Sustainability, and the Pace of Life, in Organisms, Cities, Economies, and Companies)
“
You are the TEACHER. Some people are so stuck on what you did in the past, that they don't realize that you forgave yourself, matured, and graduated from what happened.
Yet here they are stuck on that memory..wondering how you were able to move on. Time waits for no one and life keeps going.
When haters try to remind you of your past, starve their attention with silence..Just realize that you don't have time to supervise adults. You got things to do and individuals to mentor.
What was designed to crush you just strengthened your walk, put confidence in your talk, and encouraged you to be content with You.
Their presence or opinion is only entertainment in the bleachers, tolerated decorations on the wall, and the uncelebrated clown at your events.
Remember you are the teacher and they are the student...take charge of your classroom!!
”
”
Kendricks Fields (The Table Between Us)
“
People will love people
no matter what
terrible shit they do.
We forgive people, even when
they don’t ask for forgiveness.
When there is no
atonement,
no penance.
Why do we love people?
Why do we forgive evil?
Stupidity—
Shallowness—
the darkest motives.
We forgive
because we are attached,
we have known them a long time,
we have put them into the
category of family or friend.
We want to have sex with them.
Because they entertain us.
We even forgive child molesters
if they make good movies.
The unspeakable truth
is that we need written laws
that have mystic origins—
with weapons to keep
them upheld.
Because we are too
forgiving of our friends
and family. We take their side,
even when we know
they are wrong, and lying.
The world would collapse
into chaos without law
not because we are
savage beasts, but because
we are so forgiving.
”
”
Noah Cicero (Bipolar Cowboy)
“
Was it that she understood that we resented having others think that we were all entertainers and natural singers? But now after the mutual laughter something disturbed me: Shouldn't there be some way for us to be asked to sing? Shouldn't the short man have the right to make a mistake without his motives being considered consciously or unconsciously malicious? After all, he was singing, or trying to. What if I asked him to sing?
”
”
Ralph Ellison (Invisible Man)
“
Fifteen years ago, a business manager from the United States came to Plum Village to visit me. His conscience was troubled because he was the head of a firm that designed atomic bombs. I listened as he expressed his concerns. I knew if I advised him to quit his job, another person would only replace him. If he were to quit, he might help himself, but he would not help his company, society, or country. I urged him to remain the director of his firm, to bring mindfulness into his daily work, and to use his position to communicate his concerns and doubts about the production of atomic bombs.
In the Sutra on Happiness, the Buddha says it is great fortune to have an occupation that allows us to be happy, to help others, and to generate compassion and understanding in this world. Those in the helping professions have occupations that give them this wonderful opportunity. Yet many social workers, physicians, and therapists work in a way that does not cultivate their compassion, instead doing their job only to earn money. If the bomb designer practises and does his work with mindfulness, his job can still nourish his compassion and in some way allow him to help others. He can still influence his government and fellow citizens by bringing greater awareness to the situation. He can give the whole nation an opportunity to question the necessity of bomb production.
Many people who are wealthy, powerful, and important in business, politics, and entertainment are not happy. They are seeking empty things - wealth, fame, power, sex - and in the process they are destroying themselves and those around them. In Plum Village, we have organised retreats for businesspeople. We see that they have many problems and suffer just as others do, sometimes even more. We see that their wealth allows them to live in comfortable conditions, yet they still suffer a great deal.
Some businesspeople, even those who have persuaded themselves that their work is very important, feel empty in their occupation. They provide employment to many people in their factories, newspapers, insurance firms, and supermarket chains, yet their financial success is an empty happiness because it is not motivated by understanding or compassion. Caught up in their small world of profit and loss, they are unaware of the suffering and poverty in the world. When we are not int ouch with this larger reality, we will lack the compassion we need to nourish and guide us to happiness.
Once you begin to realise your interconnectedness with others, your interbeing, you begin to see how your actions affect you and all other life. You begin to question your way of living, to look with new eyes at the quality of your relationships and the way you work. You begin to see, 'I have to earn a living, yes, but I want to earn a living mindfully. I want to try to select a vocation not harmful to others and to the natural world, one that does not misuse resources.'
Entire companies can also adopt this way of thinking. Companies have the right to pursue economic growth, but not at the expense of other life. They should respect the life and integrity of people, animals, plants and minerals. Do not invest your time or money in companies that deprive others of their lives, that operate in a way that exploits people or animals, and destroys nature.
Businesspeople who visit Plum Village often find that getting in touch with the suffering of others and cultivating understanding brings them happiness. They practise like Anathapindika, a successful businessman who lived at the time of the Buddha, who with the practise of mindfulness throughout his life did everything he could to help the poor and sick people in his homeland.
”
”
Thich Nhat Hanh (Creating True Peace: Ending Violence in Yourself, Your Family, Your Community, and the World)
“
Life is about choices. You must choose what you want. If you don’t choose. People, your friends, family and life will choose for you, and they won’t choose what is best for you. Choose your friends , who do you vibe and hang around with carefully. Choose do you entertain, sleep with or tell your secrets or plans. Always choose to do the right things and never break the law or people's heart. If you make wrong choices, you will suffer, get hurt or die. if you make right choices, you will live longer and prosper.
”
”
D.J. Kyos
“
I know you are tired. I know you are hurting. I know that even among the crowds and or with your closest loved ones, you feel terribly alone in the world. I know that in the quietness, a thousand hell hounds are barking and snarling at your heels.
They tell you, "Everything is wrong with you. You are a failure. You will never live to see your dreams and visions come to pass. You know you should just throw in the towel. No one would even miss you if you were gone. Exit from this cruel insane assylum you call home. We will even tell you how to end 'it'."
But don't you dare entertain those hounds of hell, no, not even for one moment. See, you not only have the elixir of Life inside of your organs and your veins; you are the Elixir of Life of a Celestial domain. For every hell hound nipping at your ears, there are eight hundred angels rushing to you with every holy breath....you take. Every step you make fuels the fire of Love in your behalf.
See, nothing is wrong with you. Every thing is right with you. You are cut from iron. You have long exchanged your velveteen fabric and cotton stuffing for blazen guts and a heart of gold. You are the head and not the tail. You are the water in the desert, the ripple in the steam, the sword AND the stone and you, glorious being, are not alone!
We are one and we are many. We've known lack, but we are plenty. We are not on the cusp of a break through. We are the cusp and we are the break --- through. We are the old and we are the new. Who knew? You did. You do. And don't you ever forget that.
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Mishi McCoy (The Lovely Knowing)
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The most effective way to overcome both procrastination and reluctance and resistance to practicing is to just do it. Nothing works as quickly or effectively as diligence. The simple act of consistently sitting down and placing your attention on the meditation object, day after day, is the essential first step from which everything else in the Ten Stages flows. Then, once seated, you must train yourself, gently and without self-judgment, to actually meditate rather than engage in some more entertaining mental activity. Notice that I said “train yourself,” not “force” or “discipline yourself.” Force, guilt, and willpower won’t produce a sustainable practice, not least because of the negative emotions they stir up. Training yourself means working on your motivation and intentions until the simple acts of sitting down and meditating follow naturally. Then, you repeat those activities every day until they turn into habits. Once you start practicing regularly, you will be surprised by how quickly meditation becomes easier and more gratifying.
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Culadasa (John Yates) (The Mind Illuminated: A Complete Meditation Guide Integrating Buddhist Wisdom and Brain Science for Greater Mindfulness)
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language in other words which submits to its audience, rather than instructing, informing, moving, challenging and even entertaining them, is no longer a language which can carry the freight the Bible requires. It has, in short, lost all authority. The language of the King James Bible is the language of Hatfield, of patriarchy, of an instructed order, of richness as a form of beauty, of authority as a form of good; the New English Bible is motivated by the opposite, an anxiety not to bore or intimidate. It is driven, in other words, by the desire to please and, in that way, is a form of language which has died.
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Adam Nicolson (God's Secretaries: The Making of the King James Bible)
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The modern church by and large is focused on self. We see a proliferation of self-help, self-improvement, and generally self-centered books lining the shelves of Christian book stores, and climbing to the top of best-seller lists. Many Pastors have become little more than “life coaches” and motivational speakers. We see men of God who at one time thundered out calls to repentance and holy living, now proclaiming that their people have a “champion” inside them. We see shepherds who should be feeding the sheep, now having to entertain the goats. There has been without a doubt, a shift from the Church at Philadelphia to the Church at Laodicea.
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Kevin Johnson (A Journey to the End: Revelation Revisited)
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SHAKESPEARE
What is a man,
If his chief good and market of his time
Be but to sleep and feed? A beast, no more
(Hamlet)
There is no one kind of Shakespearean hero, although in many ways Hamlet is the epitome of the Renaissance tragic hero, who reaches his perfection only to die. In Shakespeare's early plays, his heroes are mainly historical figures, kings of England, as he traces some of the historical background to the nation's glory. But character and motive are more vital to his work than praise for the dynasty, and Shakespeare's range expands considerably during the 1590s, as he and his company became the stars of London theatre. Although he never went to university, as Marlowe and Kyd had done, Shakespeare had a wider range of reference and allusion, theme and content than any of his contemporaries. His plays, written for performance rather than publication, were not only highly successful as entertainment, they were also at the cutting edge of the debate on a great many of the moral and philosophical issues of the time.
Shakespeare's earliest concern was with kingship and history, with how 'this sceptr'd isle' came to its present glory. As his career progressed, the horizons of the world widened, and his explorations encompassed the geography of the human soul, just as the voyages of such travellers as Richard Hakluyt, Sir Walter Raleigh, and Sir Francis Drake expanded the horizons of the real world.
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Ronald Carter (The Routledge History of Literature in English: Britain and Ireland)
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I am interested in helping people to understand how to sell what it is they need to sell in a way that makes sense for both them and the investor. Over the years what I have been astounded that many artists and business people who produce theatre works consistently do not know how to go about funding their projects and moving them from one point to the other. There are many money sources around, but in many cases people who make theatre are not business minded to the point of developing the skills to mine money sources consistently. Ask yourself what is the motivation of this potential investor. Is it for financial return, is it for tax credit, is it just to help? or do they want to become a part of the entertainment business?
OK once you have discovered this then you need to think in terms of how do you present your case. This is what has come to be known in the world of investment as your “pitch deck.
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Teddy Hayes (The Guerrilla Guide To Being A Theatrical Producer)
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Spare a thought in 2013, this horrible horrible time to be alive, for the satirist. To satirise the self-satirising effluence that passes for populist entertainment and the pathetic vanity of a self-deifying movie industry is no mean feat in an age comfortable in its metameta cage. Being born into a system that values success, usually financial, above everything else, into an essentially worthless and spoiled world of governments happy to toss art aside in favour of financial dominance and petty power, gives the writer a subject, but limited maneuverability in his approach. To merry heck with the leaders who close libraries, theatres and community centres in favour of opening more retail opportunities and call centres to slowly mind-melt the populace. Fuck these zoot-suited capitalist cockslingers with their pus-filled polyps for souls. Because the only respite from the failed system in this failed First World is through literature—not through the ideologues, rhetoricians or motivational yammerers, but through the wonderous drug of fiction.
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MJ Nicholls
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Why do people go to church on Sundays? A question that is very complicated because I know what the answer is supposed to be but I do not really know the answer.
. I think people go because it is a kind of tradition
. I think some goes because someone told them if tgey do not they might go to hell
. Maybe some go to look for a wife or husband ☺
. Maybe some go to church to display their latest designer shoes or handbags
. Some goes just to please their Pastor
. Some people go to church because they love the music or the preaching
. Some goes because of some social reasons and friendship
. Some have it in their mind that they will experience the presence of God in the church
. Some goes to church because of miracle
. Some goes to church when they are expecting something maybe child, comfort, marriage, work etc.
. Some felt it is an obligation to give God a day out of the seven days he created
Let me tell you that church is not there to entertain you, Ephesians 3:20... there are things going on in the church that some people barely know about.
Ask yourself today why do I go to church. I am sure a sincere answer will help you.
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Patience Johnson (Why Does an Orderly God Allow Disorder)
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They are the motivational factors for everything in your life-for any thing that you do or any living thing does: The first is survival, the second is social order, and the third is entertainment. Everything in life progresses in that order. Everything is moving in the same direction, but not at the same time. So basically sex has reached entertainment, war is close to it, technology is pretty much there. The new things are things that are just survival. Like, hopefully, space travel will at some point be an issue of survival, then it will be social, then entertainment. Look at civilization as a cult. I mean, that also follows the same pattern. Civilization starts as survival. You get together to survive better and you build up your social structure. Then eventually civilization exists purely for entertainment. Okay, well, not purely. And it doesn't have to be bad entertainment. The ancient Greeks are known for having had a very strong social order, and they also had a lot of entertainment. They're known for having had the best philosophers of their time.
So what this builds up to is that in the end we're all here to have fun. We might as well sit down and relax, and enjoy the ride.
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Linus Torvalds (Just for Fun: The Story of an Accidental Revolutionary)
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The modern world had lost the thing which informs every act and gesture of Hatfield, of the King James Bible, and of that incomparable age: a sense of encompassing richness which stretches unbroken from the divine to the sculptural, from theology to cushions, from a sense of the beauty of the created world to the extraordinary capabilities of language to embody it. This is about more than mere sonority or the beeswaxed heritage-appeal of antique vocabulary and grammar. The flattening of language is a flattening of meaning. Language which is not taut with a sense of its own significance, which is apologetic in its desire to be acceptable to a modern consciousness, language in other words which submits to its audience, rather than instructing, informing, moving, challenging and even entertaining them, is no longer a language which can carry the freight the Bible requires. It has, in short, lost all authority. The language of the King James Bible is the language of Hatfield, of patriarchy, of an instructed order, of richness as a form of beauty, of authority as a form of good; the New English Bible is motivated by the opposite, an anxiety not to bore or intimidate. It is driven, in other words, by the desire to please and, in that way, is a form of language which has died.
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Adam Nicolson (God's Secretaries: The Making of the King James Bible)
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Phaeton said, "No civilization can exist without money. Even one in which energy is as cheap and free as air on Earth, would still have some needs and desires which some people can fulfill better than others. An entertainment industry, if nothing else. Whatever efforts -- if any -- these productive people make, above and beyond that which their own idle pastimes incline them to make, will be motivated by gifts or barter bestowed by others eager for their services. Whatever barter keeps its value best over time, stays in demand, and is portable, recognizable, divisible, will become their money, No matter what they call it, no matter what form it takes, whether cowry shells or gold or grams of antimatter, it will be money. Even Sophotechs use standardized computer seconds to prioritize distribution of system resources among themselves. As long as men value each other, admire each other, need each other, there will be money."
Diomedes said, "And if all men live in isolation? Surrounded by nothing but computer-generated dreams, pleasant fictions, and flatteries? And their every desire is satisfied by electronic illusions which create in their brains the sensations of satisfaction without the substance? What need have men to value other men then?"
"Men who value their own lives would not live that way.
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John C. Wright (The Golden Transcendence (Golden Age, #3))
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Television’s greatest appeal is that it is engaging without being at all demanding. One can rest while undergoing stimulation. Receive without giving. It’s the same in all low art that has as goal continued attention and patronage: it’s appealing precisely because it’s at once fun and easy. And the entrenchment of a culture built on Appeal helps explain a dark and curious thing: at a time when there are more decent and good and very good serious fiction writers at work in America than ever before, an American public enjoying unprecedented literacy and disposable income spends the vast bulk of its reading time and book dollar on fiction that is, by any fair standard, trash. Trash fiction is, by design and appeal, most like televised narrative: engaging without being demanding. But trash, in terms of both quality and popularity, is a much more sinister phenomenon. For while television has from its beginnings been openly motivated by — has been about—considerations of mass appeal and L.C.D. and profit, our own history is chock-full of evidence that readers and societies may properly expect important, lasting contributions from a narrative art that understands itself as being about considerations more important than popularity and balance sheets. Entertainers can divert and engage and maybe even console; only artists can transfigure. Today’s trash writers are entertainers working artists’ turf. This in itself is nothing new. But television aesthetics, and television-like economics, have clearly made their unprecedented popularity and reward possible. And there seems to me to be a real danger that not only the forms but the norms of televised art will begin to supplant the standards of all narrative art. This would be a disaster.
[...] Even the snottiest young artiste, of course, probably isn’t going to bear personal ill will toward writers of trash; just as, while everybody agrees that prostitution is a bad thing for everyone involved, few are apt to blame prostitutes themselves, or wish them harm. If this seems like a non sequitur, I’m going to claim the analogy is all too apt. A prostitute is someone who, in exchange for money, affords someone else the form and sensation of sexual intimacy without any of the complex emotions or responsibilities that make intimacy between two people a valuable or meaningful human enterprise. The prostitute “gives,” but — demanding nothing of comparable value in return — perverts the giving, helps render what is supposed to be a revelation a transaction. The writer of trash fiction, often with admirable craft, affords his customer a narrative structure and movement, and content that engages the reader — titillates, repulses, excites, transports him — without demanding of him any of the intellectual or spiritual or artistic responses that render verbal intercourse between writer and reader an important or even real activity."
- from "Fictional Futures and the Conspicuously Young
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David Foster Wallace (Both Flesh and Not: Essays)
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We need not have any illusions that a causal agent lives within the human mind to recognize that certain people are dangerous. What we condemn most in another person is the conscious intention to do harm. Degrees of guilt can still be judged by reference to the facts of a case: the personality of the accused, his prior offenses, his patterns of association with others, his use of intoxicants, his confessed motives with regard to the victim, etc. If a person’s actions seem to have been entirely out of character, this might influence our view of the risk he now poses to others. If the accused appears unrepentant and eager to kill again, we need entertain no notions of free will to consider him a danger to society.
Why is the conscious decision to do another person harm particularly blameworthy? Because what we do subsequent to conscious planning tends to most fully reflect the global properties of our minds—our beliefs, desires, goals, prejudices, etc. If, after weeks of deliberation, library research, and debate with your friends, you still decide to kill the king—well, then killing the king reflects the sort of person you really are. The point is not that you are the ultimate and independent cause of your actions; the point is that, for whatever reason, you have the mind of a regicide.
Certain criminals must be incarcerated to prevent them from harming other people. The moral justification for this is entirely straightforward: Everyone else will be better off this way. Dispensing with the illusion of free will allows us to focus on the things that matter—assessing risk, protecting innocent people, deterring crime, etc. However, certain moral intuitions begin to relax the moment we take a wider picture of causality into account. Once we recognize that even the most terrifying predators are, in a very real sense, unlucky to be who they are, the logic of hating (as opposed to fearing) them begins to unravel. Once again, even if you believe that every human being harbors an immortal soul, the picture does not change: Anyone born with the soul of a psychopath has been profoundly unlucky.
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Sam Harris (Free Will)
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Wisdom does not always come with age; it is intense than age. It is about the way WE see and understand things. The way WE consider others. The way WE communicate. The way WE react. The way WE behave. The things WE value. The things WE entertain. The way WE represent OURSELVES. Everyone becomes old, but not everyone becomes wise.
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Venu CV
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Some people don't respect artist and don't respect art. They think artist are crazy and art is something you do , when you have nothing else in life to do.
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D.J. Kyos
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Faith never accepts or entertains any other outcome than the one believed for.
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Dr. Billy Alsbrooks
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Fiction is a type of one-way entertainment. This is not an especially complex phenomenon: We can appreciate detestable things in fiction because those detestable things didn’t happen to anyone who’s actually alive. It’s as straightforward as that. A child can understand it.
The reverse, however, is harder to comprehend. It’s difficult to understand why people only support certain desirable things if they remain unreal. Yet it happens all the time, and especially with depictions of vigilantes. Batman is a beloved fictional figure who would not be beloved in a nonfictional world, even if the real-life version was identical to his fabricated image in every conceivable way. He would be seen as a brutal freak, scarier to the public than the criminals he captured. We would not believe he was good. We would believe his thirst for justice was a disarticulation of his own sick psychology. Batman is not a superhero because of his physical abilities and mental acuities; Batman is a superhero because he seems like a moral impossibility. No one believes a real human would live that far outside the law for the good of other people. His altruistic motives are plausible only in a fake world.
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Chuck Klosterman (I Wear the Black Hat: Grappling With Villains (Real and Imagined))
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A man long enough sedated may no longer even realize he’s being sedated, or want to.
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Shawn Davis (The Talk: A Young Person's Guide to Life's Big Questions)
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Entertainment is often just a cheap way to quench our natural thirst for meaning by encouraging us to exercise passivity when we ought to act with passion.
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Shawn Davis (The Talk: A Young Person's Guide to Life's Big Questions)
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I've always been drawn to character-driven stories. People, their thoughts, motivations, and fears all become behavior. If the characters are well-developed they will create their own plot. I, the author, simply listen, watch, and record what they do. It's very entertaining. No one tells you to do this in writing workshops or classes, but It's the only way, for me, to make sure they are actually alive and not a figment of my imagination.
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Gail Lynn Hanson
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Most of us feel like the world is giving us a big fat middle finger when it’s not kicking us in the face with a steel-toed boot. And most of us feel powerless. Motivated but powerless. Entertained but powerless. Informed but powerless. Fleetingly content, most of the time broke, sometimes hopeful, but ultimately powerless. And angry. Don’t forget angry.
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Jonathan Evison (Lawn Boy)
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A third reason for auditory atrophy is the expectation of congregations, who have come to believe that the sermon is monologue, not motivation, that it is designed for entertainment. The service becomes less an opportunity for reconciliation, restoration, and renewal and more a Sunday morning version of what Johnny Carson, Jay Leno, and now Jimmy Fallon provide on weekday nights: a monologue to make us laugh, music to amuse or bemuse us (having paid singers in the choir doesn’t hurt, nor does an organ that cost more than most
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Amy-Jill Levine (Short Stories by Jesus: The Enigmatic Parables of a Controversial Rabbi)
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It's more entertaining with a good friend.
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Nancy B. Urbach
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God has created Adam and Eve to be our parents
Parents are the source of love and happiness
Happiness exists among family members
Members of the same family are united for a reason
A reason to love and be loved
Loved, raised, developed, and entertained by sacrifices
Sacrifices were provided by Parents
Parents Exist
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Isaac Nash (PARENTS EXIST)
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Today’s society has an obsession with electronic entertainment.
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Jay D'Cee
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There is a limit that must be released and replaced in one of three areas: A limit in your Mindset—you entertain a low belief in yourself, your capabilities, what you deserve, or what is possible. A limit in your Motivation—you lack the drive, purpose, or energy to take action. A limit in your Methods—you were taught and are acting on a process that is not effective to create the results you desire.
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Jim Kwik (Limitless: Upgrade Your Brain, Learn Anything Faster, and Unlock Your Exceptional Life)
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Let your competitors do cheap and efficient marketing while yours entertains, delights, inspires, and wows.
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Allan Dib (The 1-Page Marketing Plan: Get New Customers, Make More Money, and Stand Out from the Crowd)
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Journalists fill very different social roles than those of scientists, and the press serves different roles than those of scientific institutions. Scientists and research institutions have motivations for communicating with the public that only partly overlap with those of journalists. From a scientist’s perspective, the function of media ought to be to disseminate scientific results accurately and in proportion to the strength of the evidence they have produced…
Journalists, on the other hand, work to avoid the appearance of working for a “special interest.” The news media aim to entertain; warn of dangers and failures; and report, explain, or comment on events. Preventing disease is not one of these goals…
Although desiring to only present factual information, a journalist with a deadline to deliver a story before the publication of a newspaper or the airing of television program may simply not have enough time to “get it right” because they interviewed the wrong people, missed important features, or were not able to follow up on sources. Long-form investigative journalism, such as Deer’s investigation of Wakefield’s conflicts of interest, can slowly fill these gaps.
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Jonathan M. Berman (Anti-Vaxxers: How to Challenge a Misinformed Movement)
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Your mindset shapes your reality. Choose which thoughts you entertain... and choose wisely.
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Jen Alvares
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There are three things that have meaning for life. They are the motivational factors for everything in your life––for anything that you do or any living thing does: The first is survival, the second is social order, and the third is entertainment. Everything in life progresses in that order.
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Linus Torvalds (Just for Fun: The Story of an Accidental Revolutionary)
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Since people no longer live in caves and hunt for food, we can spend money on things purely for fun or entertainment. We are often motivated by our desire to feel good, rather than our basic needs. Simply put, there are a lot of things we as people might find valuable—it isn’t just about survival. Businesses, though, see things differently. For them, it is often just about survival.
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Rob Anthony O'Rourke ($1,000,000 Web Designer Guide: A Practical Guide for Wealth and Freedom as an Online Freelancer)
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Artists face unique hurdles compared to other occupations. A large percentage of employment in the media and entertainment industry is either contract or freelance. Which means it’s more difficult for artists to access bank loans, credit cards, rental properties and capital.
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Vanessa de Largie
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Much of that hostility, which emanated from the entertainment industry, was racially motivated. There were many Americans, then and later, that resented Japanese people, such as Noguchi, who occupied positions of authority. “I am a coroner,” he said. “It is a noble profession.” Like a mortician, who embalms dead bodies, Noguchi was proud of his job. “I consider myself an artist.” Despite ongoing criticism, Noguchi was totally dedicated to his work. He believed in the public’s right to know the truth and for telling it like it is – not as someone might have imagined it.
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Howard Johns (Drowning Sorrows: A True Story of Love, Passion and Betrayal)
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Suppose a top politician, entertainment figure, or sports star said it didn't really matter who shot Lincoln or why, who attacked Pearl Harbor, the Alamo or the USS Liberty. Imagine the derision. Imagine the ridicule. Imagine the loss in credibility and marketing revenue. Now imagine if a well-respected academic 'who should know better' said exactly the same thing. It doesn't really matter who committed a great crime; history had nothing to teach us; we should never waste precious time trying to apprehend the perpetrators, nor understand their motives but focus only on the outcome of their foul deeds.
Well, that is exactly what Noam Chomsky appears to believe. Do not focus on the plot or the plotters or the clever planning of any crime but only the aftermath. Strangely, I had always thought linguistics was the scientific study of language rather than a lame attempt at disinformation.
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Douglas Herman
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To create your comedic MAPP, you start with the purpose. Why are you writing humor? Is it to motivate or to entertain? Is the humor for a speech, a presentation, a comedy gig, or the classroom? The purpose gives direction and meaning to the material.
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Mark Shatz (Comedy Writing Secrets: The Best-Selling Guide to Writing Funny and Getting Paid for It)
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While it is beneficial for a child to feel bad when anticipating a loss of connection with those who are devoted to him and his well-being and development, it is crucially important for parents to understand that it is unwise to ever exploit this conscience. We must never intentionally make a child feel bad, guilty, or ashamed in order to get him to be good. Abusing the attachment conscience evokes deep insecurities in the child and may induce him to shut it right down for fear of being hurt. The consequences are not worth any short-term gains in behavioral goals.
If we find ourselves shocked by the behavioral changes that come in the wake of peer orientation, it is because what is acceptable to peers is vastly different from what is acceptable to parents. Likewise, what alienates peers is a far cry from what alienates parents. The attachment conscience is serving a new master. When a child tries to find favor with peers instead of parents, the motivation to be good for the parents drops significantly. If the values of the peers differ from those of the parents, the child's behavior will also change accordingly. This change in behavior reveals that the values of the parents had never been truly internalized, genuinely made the child's own. They functioned mostly as instruments of finding favor.
Children do not internalize values — make them their own — until adolescence. Thus the changes in a peer-oriented child's behavior do not mean that his values have changed, only that the direction of his attachment instinct has altered course. Parental values such as studying, working toward a goal, the pursuit of excellence, respect for society, the realization of potential, the development of talent, the pursuit of a passion, the appreciation of culture are often replaced with peer values that are much more immediate and short term.
Appearance, entertainment, peer loyalty, spending time together, fitting into the subculture, and getting along with each other will be prized above education and the realization of personal potential. Parents often find themselves arguing about values, not realizing that for their peer-oriented children values are nothing more than the standards that they, the children, must meet in order to gain the acceptance of the peer group.
So it happens that we lose our influence just at the time in our children's lives when it is most appropriate and necessary for us to articulate our values to them and to encourage the internalization of what we believe in. The nurturing of values takes time and discourse. Peer orientation robs parents of that opportunity. In this way peer orientation arrests moral development.
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Gabor Maté (Hold On to Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More Than Peers)
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It is my argument that American liberalism is a totalitarian political religion, but not necessarily an Orwellian one. It is nice, not brutal. Nannying, not bullying. But it is definitely totalitarian--or "holistic", if you prefer--in that liberalism today sees no realm of human life that is beyond political significance, from what you eat to what you smoke to what you say. Sex is political. Food is political. Sports, entertainment, your inner motives and outer appearance, all have political salience for liberal fascists. Liberals place their faith in priestly experts who know better, who plan, exhort, badger, and scold. They try to use science to discredit traditional notions of religion and faith, but they speak the language of pluralism and spirituality to defend "nontraditional" beliefs. Just as with classical fascism, liberal fascists speak of a "Third Way" between right and left where all good things go together and all hard choices are "false choices".
The idea that there are no hard choices--that is, choices between competing goods--is religious and totalitarian because it assumes that all good things are fundamentally compatible. The conservatives or classical liberal vision understands that life is unfair, that man is flawed, and that the only perfect society, the only real utopia, waits for us in the next life.
Liberal fascism differs from classical fascism in many ways. I don't deny this. Indeed, it is central to my point. Fascisms differ from each other because they grow out of different soil. What unites them are their emotional or instinctual impulses, such as the quest for community, the urge to "get beyond" politics, a faith in the perfectibility of man and the authority of experts, and an obsession with the aesthetics of youth, the cult of action, and the need for an all powerful state to coordinate society at the national or global level. Most of all, they share the belief--what I call the totalitarian temptation--that with the right amount of tinkering we can realize the utopian dream of "creating a better world".
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Jonah Goldberg (Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left from Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning)
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These "God Winks" may be an answer to prayer, a warning to change course, or a reward for doing things right. Become mindful and aware of how these cosmic puzzle pieces come together to enrich your life and your relationships. It is both affirming and entertaining to consider. Be open and grateful.
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Susan C. Young (The Art of Communication: 8 Ways to Confirm Clarity & Understanding for Positive Impact(The Art of First Impressions for Positive Impact, #5))
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How's your humor? What can you do to have more humorous lines to use in the right place at the right time? I highly recommend it! Laughter is the best medicine indeed. Not only will you enjoy the experience yourself, but the people around you will enjoy the entertainment.
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Susan C. Young (The Art of Connection: 8 Ways to Enrich Rapport & Kinship for Positive Impact (The Art of First Impressions for Positive Impact, #6))
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Know your audience! With the high level of cultural sensitivity these days, it is often better to err on the side of caution. If you don’t want your humor to come back and bite you, don’t hurt one person to entertain another. We can have humor without making fun of other people.
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Susan C. Young (The Art of Connection: 8 Ways to Enrich Rapport & Kinship for Positive Impact (The Art of First Impressions for Positive Impact, #6))
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My friend Scott Friedman (ScottFriedman.net) is a motivational humorist who specializes in employee engagement, celebration, and customer service. He teaches organizations that when their organizations are happy, they enjoy increased productivity, higher performance, better engagement, and elevated levels of health and well-being among their people.
In his book, Happily Ever Laughter, Scott shares, “Personal stories are excellent (and entertaining) catalysts both for communicating big ideas and for presenting your most original humor. Better yet, stories let you provide more substance in less time. Jokes, on the other hand, have less reach substance-wise. Why? Because a joke is meant to entertain. A story, on the other hand, has inherent meaning. Stories allow the audience to get to know you, your imperfections, your flaws, and your foolishness. You can be vulnerable right there with audience watching. You can entertain, enlighten and teach all in the same effort.
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Susan C. Young (The Art of Connection: 8 Ways to Enrich Rapport & Kinship for Positive Impact (The Art of First Impressions for Positive Impact, #6))
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The variety of political positions shared on Facebook in the 2016 Presidential Election was both entertaining and, sadly, destructive. I observed friends of a lifetime divide into different camps and sacrifice their friendships through argument and debate. As an avid reader and political junkie, I had to hold myself back from expressing my opinions or presenting factual evidence which would obliterate others’ claims. Why would I jump into the fray? All it would do is hurt the friendship. Rarely does arguing political positions change an opinion or belief.
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Susan C. Young (The Art of Connection: 8 Ways to Enrich Rapport & Kinship for Positive Impact (The Art of First Impressions for Positive Impact, #6))
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Use Fun & Humor. Humor lightens spirits, comforts through a challenge, brings people together, engages, and entertains. Bring delight and joy to others and you will leave them wanting more.
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Susan C. Young (The Art of Connection: 8 Ways to Enrich Rapport & Kinship for Positive Impact (The Art of First Impressions for Positive Impact, #6))
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Can I Trust You?
Years ago, I heard Lou Holtz speak at a national conference. His rock-solid reputation preceded him—he is the only coach in the history of college football to take six different football teams to a bowl game. He is not only well-respected for his ability to elevate football programs, but to elevate individuals as well.
During his humorous and entertaining keynote, he taught a few small lessons which carried big meanings. He shared that every person you meet is privately asking themselves three questions:
1. Do you care about me?
2. Do I like you?
3. Can I trust you?
When you make an authentic, sincere, and dignified effort to create a positive first impression, you increase your chances of receiving a "Yes!" to those questions. Unfortunately, if someone you meet answers "No!" you’ve got an uphill battle to earn their business or develop a friendship.
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Susan C. Young (The Art of Connection: 8 Ways to Enrich Rapport & Kinship for Positive Impact (The Art of First Impressions for Positive Impact, #6))
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A second way in which our motives influence the kind of evidence we entertain involves whose opinions, expert or otherwise, we consult. We can often anticipate other people’s general beliefs and overall orientations, and thus can predict with some accuracy their views on a particular question. By judiciously choosing the right people to consult, we can increase our chances of hearing what we want to hear.
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Thomas Gilovich (How We Know What Isn't So: The Fallibility of Human Reason in Everyday Life)
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Some of us don't stay long enough in one single place, relationship, journey or country but that does not mean we evade reality or makes us unstable. It simply means, we are not very keen to entertain ourselves, for long periods of time, with the same old same old reflections or shadows on the wall, when aware of the existence of the sun; the price for enlightenment, solitude
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EfratCybulkiewicz
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One of your friends may bored , one may tiered , one may feared , what you have to do is to make them entertained , if you can't do it , make them active , if you fail again make a small smile in front of them.
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Abdul khadar
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You must learn to distinguish what is there to entertain the minds of the oblivious, and what can be material for you to build an impressive library. Material that will change the way you think and have a tremendous impact on your life.
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Chris Erzfeld
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Read books that are thought-provoking and challenge your current beliefs. Entertain all kinds of possibilities and ideas before coming up with any conclusions.
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Chris Erzfeld
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August Murder creates a fast-paced thriller about terrorism, murder, politics, and one man who doesn't believe the report of events surrounding his son's death in Puerto Rico, and who assembles a posse of lawyers and investigators to uncover the truth.
The focus on political investigations and a web of intrigue and conspiracy, combined with a heavy dose of Puerto Rican politics and cultural insights, lends to a creation which serves to both entertain and enlighten.
It takes a talented hand to wind nonfiction facts into a fictional mystery, grapple with a myriad of characters which prove compelling and recognizable in their own rights through the story line, and maintain a flow of action and drama that easily holds reader attention.
August Mystery succeeds in all these aspects, and is a compelling saga of conflicting evidence and motivations for murder, crafting an especially astute eye to capturing Puerto Rican daily lives and experiences: "Mr. Miller, policemen in Puerto Rico don’t make a lot of money. The average salary for a police officer is around $30,000, about the same as the average salary for a teacher. For that kind of money, they risk their lives in dangerous places. They have to deal with young delinquents in the projects who may make $30,000 in one week, and who are much better armed than any policeman. It’s amazing that more of them are not taking money to look the other way or do worse."
T. Miranda's ability to enlighten readers about the underlying culture, social issues, and political pressures in Puerto Rico contributes to an outstanding thriller especially recommended for modern readers who would gain a sense of the island's processes and peoples.
D. Donovan, Senior Editor, Midwest Book Review
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D. Donovan, Senior Editor, Midwest Book Review