β
The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.
β
β
William Shakespeare (As You Like It)
β
A wise girl kisses but doesn't love, listens but doesn't believe, and leaves before she is left.
β
β
Marilyn Monroe
β
When someone loves you, the way they talk about you is different. You feel safe and comfortable.
β
β
Jess C. Scott (The Intern)
β
Attitude is a choice. Happiness is a choice. Optimism is a choice. Kindness is a choice. Giving is a choice. Respect is a choice. Whatever choice you make makes you. Choose wisely.
β
β
Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
β
A clever person solves a problem. A wise person avoids it.
β
β
Albert Einstein
β
The simple things are also the most extraordinary things, and only the wise can see them.
β
β
Paulo Coelho (The Alchemist)
β
There are three things all wise men fear: the sea in storm, a night with no moon, and the anger of a gentle man.
β
β
Patrick Rothfuss (The Wise Manβs Fear (The Kingkiller Chronicle, #2))
β
Angry people are not always wise.
β
β
Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice)
β
Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.
β
β
Jalal ad-Din Muhammad ar-Rumi
β
Deserves it! I daresay he does. Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends.
β
β
J.R.R. Tolkien (The Fellowship of the Ring (The Lord of the Rings, #1))
β
The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, nor to worry about the future, but to live the present moment wisely and earnestly.
β
β
Bukkyo Dendo Kyokai (The Teaching of Buddha)
β
Fools talk, cowards are silent, wise men listen.
β
β
Carlos Ruiz ZafΓ³n (The Shadow of the Wind (The Cemetery of Forgotten Books, #1))
β
I was wise enough never to grow up, while fooling people into believing I had.
β
β
Margaret Mead
β
A word to the wise ain't necessary, it's the stupid ones who need advice.
β
β
Bill Cosby
β
If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn't. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn't be. And what it wouldn't be, it would. You see?
β
β
Lewis Carroll (Aliceβs Adventures in Wonderland / Through the Looking-Glass)
β
It is never too late to be wise.
β
β
Daniel Defoe (Robinson Crusoe)
β
Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.
β
β
Ralph Waldo Emerson (Self Reliance)
β
The desire to reach for the stars is ambitious. The desire to reach hearts is wise.
β
β
Maya Angelou
β
Learn to light a candle in the darkest moments of someoneβs life. Be the light that helps others see; it is what gives life its deepest significance.
β
β
Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
β
Follow your heart, listen to your inner voice, stop caring about what others think.
β
β
Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
β
Understanding is the first step to acceptance, and only with acceptance can there be recovery.
β
β
J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Harry Potter, #4))
β
Religion has actually convinced people that there's an invisible man living in the sky who watches everything you do, every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a special list of ten things he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these ten things, he has a special place, full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish, where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry forever and ever 'til the end of time!
But He loves you. He loves you, and He needs money! He always needs money! He's all-powerful, all-perfect, all-knowing, and all-wise, somehow just can't handle money!
β
β
George Carlin
β
The Voice
There is a voice inside of you
That whispers all day long,
"I feel this is right for me,
I know that this is wrong."
No teacher, preacher, parent, friend
Or wise man can decide
What's right for you--just listen to
The voice that speaks inside.
β
β
Shel Silverstein
β
Sometimes one likes foolish people for their folly, better than wise people for their wisdom.
β
β
Elizabeth Gaskell (Wives and Daughters)
β
Wisdom cannot be imparted. Wisdom that a wise man attempts to impart always sounds like foolishness to someone else ... Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom. One can find it, live it, do wonders through it, but one cannot communicate and teach it.
β
β
Hermann Hesse (Siddhartha)
β
Excellence is never an accident. It is always the result of high intention, sincere effort, and intelligent execution; it represents the wise choice of many alternatives - choice, not chance, determines your destiny.
β
β
Aristotle
β
Ralph wept for the end of innocence, the darkness of man's heart, and the fall through the air of the true, wise friend called Piggy.
β
β
William Golding (Lord of the Flies)
β
It is one thing to be clever and another to be wise.
β
β
George R.R. Martin
β
It's the questions we can't answer that teach us the most. They teach us how to think. If you give a man an answer, all he gains is a little fact. But give him a question and he'll look for his own answers.
β
β
Patrick Rothfuss (The Wise Manβs Fear (The Kingkiller Chronicle, #2))
β
Iβm not waiting until my hair turns white to become patient and wise. Nope, Iβm dyeing my hair tonight.
β
β
Jarod Kintz (This Book is Not for Sale)
β
A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds.
β
β
Francis Bacon (The Essays)
β
And then something invisible snapped insider her, and that which had come together commenced to fall apart.
β
β
John Green (Looking for Alaska)
β
I felt wise and cynical as all hell.
β
β
Sylvia Plath (The Bell Jar)
β
The days that make us happy make us wise.
β
β
John Masefield
β
Out of the corner of her eye she thought she saw Jace shoot her a look of white rage - but when she glanced at him, he looked as he always did: easy, confident, slightly bored.
"In future, Clarissa," he said, "it might be wise to mention that you already have a man in your bed, to avoid such tedious situations."
"You invited him into bed?" Simon demanded, looking shaken.
"Ridiculous, isn't it?" said Jace. "We would never have all fit."
"I didn't invite him into bed," Clary snapped. "We were just kissing."
"Just kissing?" Jace's tone mocked her with its false hurt. "How swiftly you dismiss our love.
β
β
Cassandra Clare (City of Bones (The Mortal Instruments, #1))
β
Circumstances are the rulers of the weak; they are but the instruments of the wise.
β
β
Samuel Lover (Rory O'More)
β
It had flaws, but what does that matter when it comes to matters of the heart? We love what we love. Reason does not enter into it. In many ways, unwise love is the truest love. Anyone can love a thing because. That's as easy as putting a penny in your pocket. But to love something despite. To know the flaws and love them too. That is rare and pure and perfect.
β
β
Patrick Rothfuss (The Wise Manβs Fear (The Kingkiller Chronicle, #2))
β
I hope you will have a wonderful year, that you'll dream dangerously and outrageously, that you'll make something that didn't exist before you made it, that you will be loved and that you will be liked, and that you will have people to love and to like in return. And, most importantly (because I think there should be more kindness and more wisdom in the world right now), that you will, when you need to be, be wise, and that you will always be kind.
β
β
Neil Gaiman
β
Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful.
β
β
Seneca
β
I have no faith in human perfectibility. I think that human exertion will have no appreciable effect upon humanity. Man is now only more active - not more happy - nor more wise, than he was 6000 years ago.
β
β
Edgar Allan Poe
β
Goodnight stars, goodnight air, goodnight noises everywhere.
β
β
Margaret Wise Brown (Goodnight Moon)
β
True happiness is to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future, not to amuse ourselves with either hopes or fears but to rest satisfied with what we have, which is sufficient, for he that is so wants nothing. The greatest blessings of mankind are within us and within our reach. A wise man is content with his lot, whatever it may be, without wishing for what he has not.
β
β
Seneca
β
Wise? No, I simply learned to think.
β
β
Christopher Paolini (Eldest (The Inheritance Cycle, #2))
β
The head is too wise. The heart is all fire.
β
β
Maggie Stiefvater (The Raven King (The Raven Cycle, #4))
β
The art of being wise is knowing what to overlook.
β
β
William James
β
It is wise to direct your anger towards problems -- not people; to focus your energies on answers -- not excuses.
β
β
William Arthur Ward
β
Half of seeming clever is keeping your mouth shut at the right times.
β
β
Patrick Rothfuss (The Wise Manβs Fear (The Kingkiller Chronicle, #2))
β
A wise man gets more use from his enemies than a fool from his friends.
β
β
Baltasar GraciΓ‘n (The Art of Worldly Wisdom: A Pocket Oracle)
β
We do know that no one gets wise enough to really understand the heart of another, though it is the task of our life to try.
β
β
Louise Erdrich (The Bingo Palace)
β
No, that is the great fallacy: the wisdom of old men. They do not grow wise. They grow careful.
β
β
Ernest Hemingway (A Farewell to Arms)
β
I trust that everything happens for a reason, even if we are not wise enough to see it.
β
β
Oprah Winfrey
β
Y'all smoke to enjoy it. I smoke to die.
β
β
John Green (Looking for Alaska)
β
Quietness is an essential part of all awareness. In quiet times and sleepy times, a child can dwell in thoughts of his own, and in songs and stories of his own.
β
β
Margaret Wise Brown
β
For even the very wise cannot see all ends.
β
β
J.R.R. Tolkien (The Fellowship of the Ring (The Lord of the Rings, #1))
β
He thought her beautiful, believed her impeccably wise; dreamed of her, wrote poems to her, which, ignoring the subject, she corrected in red ink.
β
β
Virginia Woolf (Mrs. Dalloway)
β
Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely.
β
β
Edna St. Vincent Millay
β
The stupid neither forgive nor forget; the naive forgive and forget; the wise forgive but do not forget.
β
β
Thomas Szasz
β
A smart person knows how to talk. A wise person knows when to be silent.
β
β
Roy T. Bennett
β
A man is not called wise because he talks and talks again; but if he is peaceful, loving and fearless then he is in truth called wise.
β
β
Gautama Buddha (The Dhammapada: The Sayings of the Buddha)
β
Wisely and slow; they stumble that run fast.
β
β
William Shakespeare (Romeo and Juliet)
β
A wise man can learn more from a foolish question than a fool can learn from a wise answer.
β
β
Bruce Lee
β
It is strange how often a heart must be broken
Before the years can make it wise.
β
β
Sara Teasdale (The Collected Poems)
β
Anyone can love a thing because. That's as easy as putting a penny in your pocket.
But to love something despite. To know the flaws and love them too. That is rare and pure and perfect.
β
β
Patrick Rothfuss (The Wise Manβs Fear (The Kingkiller Chronicle, #2))
β
Laughter is poison to fear.
β
β
George R.R. Martin (A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire, #1))
β
Tell my I'm clever,
Tell me I'm kind,
Tell me I'm talented,
Tell me I'm cute,
Tell me I'm sensitive,
Graceful and Wise
Tell me I'm perfect--
But tell me the TRUTH.
β
β
Shel Silverstein (Falling Up)
β
Guard well your thoughts when alone and your words when accompanied.
β
β
Roy T. Bennett
β
What you fear most of all is βfear. Very wise...
β
β
J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Harry Potter, #3))
β
The most important thing in communication is hearing what isn't being said. The art of reading between the lines is a life long quest of the wise.
β
β
Shannon L. Alder
β
To write well, express yourself like the common people, but think like a wise man.
β
β
Aristotle
β
Books are a poor substitute for female companionship, but they are easier to find.
β
β
Patrick Rothfuss (The Wise Manβs Fear (The Kingkiller Chronicle, #2))
β
I was always an unusual girl.
My mother told me I had a chameleon soul, no moral compass pointing due north, no fixed personality; just an inner indecisiveness that was as wide and as wavering as the ocean.
β
β
Lana Del Rey
β
A person can be educated and still be stupid, and a wise man can have no education at all.
β
β
Jennifer A. Nielsen (The False Prince (Ascendance, #1))
β
When a child first catches adults out -- when it first walks into his grave little head that adults do not always have divine intelligence, that their judgments are not always wise, their thinking true, their sentences just -- his world falls into panic desolation. The gods are fallen and all safety gone. And there is one sure thing about the fall of gods: they do not fall a little; they crash and shatter or sink deeply into green muck. It is a tedious job to build them up again; they never quite shine. And the child's world is never quite whole again. It is an aching kind of growing.
β
β
John Steinbeck (East of Eden)
β
I've waited a long time to show these flowers how pretty you are.
β
β
Patrick Rothfuss (The Wise Manβs Fear (The Kingkiller Chronicle, #2))
β
The most important thing in life is to learn how to give out love, and to let it come in. Let it come in. We think we donβt deserve love, we think if we let it in weβll become too soft. But a wise man named Levin said it right. He said, βLove is the only rational act.
β
β
Mitch Albom (Tuesdays with Morrie)
β
I write almost always in the third person, and I don't think the narrator is male or female anyway. They're both, and young and old, and wise and silly, and sceptical and credulous, and innocent and experienced, all at once. Narrators are not even human - they're sprites.
β
β
Philip Pullman
β
I demolish my bridges behind me...then there is no choice but to move forward
β
β
Fridtjof Nansen
β
Knowing your own ignorance is the first step to enlightenment.
β
β
Patrick Rothfuss (The Wise Manβs Fear (The Kingkiller Chronicle, #2))
β
You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you odd.
β
β
Flannery O'Connor (Collected Works: Wise Blood / A Good Man Is Hard to Find / The Violent Bear It Away / Everything That Rises Must Converge / Essays and Letters)
β
Remember, you cannot be both young and wise. Young people who pretend to be wise to the ways of the world are mostly just cynics. Cynicism masquerades as wisdom, but it is the farthest thing from it. Because cynics donβt learn anything. Because cynicism is a self-imposed blindness, a rejection of the world because we are afraid it will hurt us or disappoint us. Cynics always say no. But saying βyesβ begins things. Saying βyesβ is how things grow. Saying βyesβ leads to knowledge. βYesβ is for young people. So for as long as you have the strength to, say βyes'.
β
β
Stephen Colbert
β
All the truth in the world is held in stories.
β
β
Patrick Rothfuss (The Wise Manβs Fear (The Kingkiller Chronicle, #2))
β
Give a bowl of rice to a man and you will feed him for a day. Teach him how to grow his own rice and you will save his life.
β
β
Confucius
β
If you only had 48 hours left to live, would you spend it like you normally spend your weekends? If not, why spend 2/7th of your life wasting your free time? After all, free time isnβt free. Free time is the most expensive time you have, because nobody pays for it but you. But that also makes it the most valuable time you have, as you alone stand to reap the profits from spending it wisely.
β
β
Jarod Kintz (I Should Have Renamed This)
β
We are all vainer of our luck than of our merits.
β
β
Rex Stout (The Rubber Band (Nero Wolfe, #3))
β
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise
If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the will which says to them: 'Hold on!'
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!
β
β
Rudyard Kipling (If: A Father's Advice to His Son)
β
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rage at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
β
β
Dylan Thomas (Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night)
β
A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day. β 'Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.' β Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.
β
β
Ralph Waldo Emerson (Self-Reliance: An Excerpt from Collected Essays, First Series)
β
Although I'm only fourteen, I know quite well what I want, I know who is right and who is wrong. I have my opinions, my own ideas and principles, and although it may sound pretty mad from an adolescent, I feel more of a person than a child, I feel quite indepedent of anyone.
β
β
Anne Frank (The Diary of Anne Frank)
β
When, however, one reads of a witch being ducked, of a woman possessed by devils, of a wise woman selling herbs, or even of a very remarkable man who had a mother, then I think we are on the track of a lost novelist, a suppressed poet, of some mute and inglorious Jane Austen, some Emily Bronte who dashed her brains out on the moor or mopped and mowed about the highways crazed with the torture that her gift had put her to. Indeed, I would venture to guess that Anon, who wrote so many poems without signing them, was often a woman.
β
β
Virginia Woolf (A Room of Oneβs Own)
β
I have an apple that thinks its a pear. And a bun that thinks itβs a cat. And a lettuce that thinks its a lettuce."
"Itβs a clever lettuce, then."
"Hardly," she said with a delicate snort. "Why would anything clever think itβs a lettuce?"
"Even if it is a lettuce?" I asked.
"Especially then," she said. "Bad enough to be a lettuce. How awful to think you are a lettuce too.
β
β
Patrick Rothfuss (The Wise Manβs Fear (The Kingkiller Chronicle, #2))
β
If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, donβt hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be. We are not wise, and not very often kind. And much can never be redeemed. Still life has some possibility left. Perhaps this is its way of fighting back, that sometimes something happened better than all the riches or power in the world. It could be anything, but very likely you notice it in the instant when love begins. Anyway, thatβs often the case. Anyway, whatever it is, donβt be afraid of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb. (Don't Hesitate)
β
β
Mary Oliver (Swan: Poems and Prose Poems)
β
America is the wealthiest nation on Earth, but its people are mainly poor, and poor Americans are urged to hate themselves. To quote the American humorist Kin Hubbard, 'It ainβt no disgrace to be poor, but it might as well be.' It is in fact a crime for an American to be poor, even though America is a nation of poor. Every other nation has folk traditions of men who were poor but extremely wise and virtuous, and therefore more estimable than anyone with power and gold. No such tales are told by the American poor. They mock themselves and glorify their betters. The meanest eating or drinking establishment, owned by a man who is himself poor, is very likely to have a sign on its wall asking this cruel question: 'if youβre so smart, why ainβt you rich?' There will also be an American flag no larger than a childβs hand β glued to a lollipop stick and flying from the cash register.
Americans, like human beings everywhere, believe many things that are obviously untrue. Their most destructive untruth is that it is very easy for any American to make money. They will not acknowledge how in fact hard money is to come by, and, therefore, those who have no money blame and blame and blame themselves. This inward blame has been a treasure for the rich and powerful, who have had to do less for their poor, publicly and privately, than any other ruling class since, say Napoleonic times. Many novelties have come from America. The most startling of these, a thing without precedent, is a mass of undignified poor. They do not love one another because they do not love themselves.
β
β
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Slaughterhouse-Five)
β
I thought of all the others who had tried to tie her to the ground and failed. So I resisted showing her the songs and poems I had written, knowing that too much truth can ruin a thing. And if that meant she wasn't entirely mine, what of it? I would be the one she could always return to without fear of recrimination or question. So I did not try to win her and contented myself with playing a beautiful game. But there was always a part of me that hoped for more, and so there was a part of me that was always a fool.
β
β
Patrick Rothfuss (The Wise Manβs Fear (The Kingkiller Chronicle, #2))
β
There is no escape. You can't be a vagabond and an artist and still be a solid citizen, a wholesome, upstanding man. You want to get drunk, so you have to accept the hangover. You say yes to the sunlight and pure fantasies, so you have to say yes to the filth and the nausea. Everything is within you, gold and mud, happiness and pain, the laughter of childhood and the apprehension of death. Say yes to everything, shirk nothing. Don't try to lie to yourself. You are not a solid citizen. You are not a Greek. You are not harmonious, or the master of yourself. You are a bird in the storm. Let it storm! Let it drive you! How much have you lied! A thousand times, even in your poems and books, you have played the harmonious man, the wise man, the happy, the enlightened man. In the same way, men attacking in war have played heroes, while their bowels twitched. My God, what a poor ape, what a fencer in the mirror man is- particularly the artist- particularly myself!
β
β
Hermann Hesse
β
AnaΓ―s, I don't know how to tell you what I feel. I live in perpetual expectancy. You come and the time slips away in a dream. It is only when you go that I realize completely your presence. And then it is too late. You numb me. [...] This is a little drunken, AnaΓ―s. I am saying to myself "here is the first woman with whom I can be absolutely sincere." I remember your saying - "you could fool me, I wouldn't know it." When I walk along the boulevards and think of that. I can't fool you - and yet I would like to. I mean that I can never be absolutely loyal - it's not in me. I love women, or life, too much - which it is, I don't know. But laugh, AnaΓ―s, I love to hear you laugh. You are the only woman who has a sense of gaiety, a wise tolerance - no more, you seem to urge me to betray you. I love you for that. [...]
I don't know what to expect of you, but it is something in the way of a miracle. I am going to demand everything of you - even the impossible, because you encourage it. You are really strong. I even like your deceit, your treachery. It seems aristocratic to me.
β
β
Henry Miller (A Literate Passion: Letters of AnaΓ―s Nin & Henry Miller, 1932-1953)
β
You can divide infinity an infinite number of times, and the resulting pieces will still be infinitely large,β Uresh said in his odd Lenatti accent. βBut if you divide a non-infinite number an infinite number of times the resulting pieces are non-infinitely small. Since they are non-infinitely small, but there are an infinite number of them, if you add them back together, their sum is infinite. This implies any number is, in fact, infinite.β
βWow,β Elodin said after a long pause. He leveled a serious finger at the Lenatti man. βUresh. Your next assignment is to have sex. If you do not know how to do this, see me after class.
β
β
Patrick Rothfuss (The Wise Manβs Fear (The Kingkiller Chronicle, #2))
β
You're going to meet many people with domineering personalities: the loud, the obnoxious, those that noisily stake their claims in your territory and everywhere else they set foot on. This is the blueprint of a predator. Predators prey on gentleness, peace, calmness, sweetness and any positivity that they sniff out as weakness. Anything that is happy and at peace they mistake for weakness. It's not your job to change these people, but it's your job to show them that your peace and gentleness do not equate to weakness. I have always appeared to be fragile and delicate but the thing is, I am not fragile and I am not delicate. I am very gentle but I can show you that the gentle also possess a poison. I compare myself to silk. People mistake silk to be weak but a silk handkerchief can protect the wearer from a gunshot. There are many people who will want to befriend you if you fit the description of what they think is weak; predators want to have friends that they can dominate over because that makes them feel strong and important. The truth is that predators have no strength and no courage. It is you who are strong, and it is you who has courage. I have lost many a friend over the fact that when they attempt to rip me, they can't. They accuse me of being deceiving; I am not deceiving, I am just made of silk. It is they who are stupid and wrongly take gentleness and fairness for weakness. There are many more predators in this world, so I want you to be made of silk. You are silk.
β
β
C. JoyBell C.
β
Chiron had said once that nations were the most foolish of mortal inventions. βNo man is worth more than another, wherever he is from.β
βBut what if he is your friend?β Achilles had asked him, feet kicked up on the wall of the rose-quartz cave. βOr your brother? Should you treat him the same as a stranger?β
βYou ask a question that philosophers argue over,β Chiron had said. βHe is worth more to you, perhaps. But the stranger is someone elseβs friend and brother. So which life is more important?β
We had been silent. We were fourteen, and these things were too hard for us. Now that we are twenty-seven, they still feel too hard.
He is half of my soul, as the poets say. He will be dead soon, and his honor is all that will remain. It is his child, his dearest self. Should I reproach him for it? I have saved Briseis. I cannot save them all.
I know, now, how I would answer Chiron. I would say: there is no answer. Whichever you choose, you are wrong.
β
β
Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
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
Iβm a modern man, a man for the millennium. Digital and smoke free. A diversified multi-cultural, post-modern deconstruction that is anatomically and ecologically incorrect. Iβve been up linked and downloaded, Iβve been inputted and outsourced, I know the upside of downsizing, I know the downside of upgrading. Iβm a high-tech low-life. A cutting edge, state-of-the-art bi-coastal multi-tasker and I can give you a gigabyte in a nanosecond!
Iβm new wave, but Iβm old school and my inner child is outward bound. Iβm a hot-wired, heat seeking, warm-hearted cool customer, voice activated and bio-degradable. I interface with my database, my database is in cyberspace, so Iβm interactive, Iβm hyperactive and from time to time Iβm radioactive.
Behind the eight ball, ahead of the curve, ridin the wave, dodgin the bullet and pushin the envelope. Iβm on-point, on-task, on-message and off drugs. Iβve got no need for coke and speed. I've got no urge to binge and purge. Iβm in-the-moment, on-the-edge, over-the-top and under-the-radar. A high-concept, low-profile, medium-range ballistic missionary. A street-wise smart bomb. A top-gun bottom feeder. I wear power ties, I tell power lies, I take power naps and run victory laps. Iβm a totally ongoing big-foot, slam-dunk, rainmaker with a pro-active outreach. A raging workaholic. A working rageaholic. Out of rehab and in denial!
Iβve got a personal trainer, a personal shopper, a personal assistant and a personal agenda. You canβt shut me up. You canβt dumb me down because Iβm tireless and Iβm wireless, Iβm an alpha male on beta-blockers.
Iβm a non-believer and an over-achiever, laid-back but fashion-forward. Up-front, down-home, low-rent, high-maintenance. Super-sized, long-lasting, high-definition, fast-acting, oven-ready and built-to-last! Iβm a hands-on, foot-loose, knee-jerk head case pretty maturely post-traumatic and Iβve got a love-child that sends me hate mail.
But, Iβm feeling, Iβm caring, Iβm healing, Iβm sharing-- a supportive, bonding, nurturing primary care-giver. My output is down, but my income is up. I took a short position on the long bond and my revenue stream has its own cash-flow. I read junk mail, I eat junk food, I buy junk bonds and I watch trash sports! Iβm gender specific, capital intensive, user-friendly and lactose intolerant.
I like rough sex. I like tough love. I use the βFβ word in my emails and the software on my hard-drive is hardcore--no soft porn.
I bought a microwave at a mini-mall; I bought a mini-van at a mega-store. I eat fast-food in the slow lane. Iβm toll-free, bite-sized, ready-to-wear and I come in all sizes. A fully-equipped, factory-authorized, hospital-tested, clinically-proven, scientifically- formulated medical miracle. Iβve been pre-wash, pre-cooked, pre-heated, pre-screened, pre-approved, pre-packaged, post-dated, freeze-dried, double-wrapped, vacuum-packed and, I have an unlimited broadband capacity.
Iβm a rude dude, but Iβm the real deal. Lean and mean! Cocked, locked and ready-to-rock. Rough, tough and hard to bluff. I take it slow, I go with the flow, I ride with the tide. Iβve got glide in my stride. Drivin and movin, sailin and spinin, jiving and groovin, wailin and winnin. I donβt snooze, so I donβt lose. I keep the pedal to the metal and the rubber on the road. I party hearty and lunch time is crunch time. Iβm hangin in, there ainβt no doubt and Iβm hangin tough, over and out!
β
β
George Carlin