“There is nothing either good or bad except that thinking makes it so.” – Shakespeare

“The mind is its own place and in itself can make a heaven of hell or a hell of heaven.” – Milton

“Great men are those who see that thoughts rule the world” – Emerson

“A gem cannot be polished without friction, nor a man perfected without trials.” – Seneca

“Just as a snake sheds its skin, we must shed our past over and over again” – Buddha

“Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without” – Buddha
“We wish to make our lives simple, certain and smooth-and for that reason problems are tabu. We choose to have certainties and no doubts-results and no experiments-without even seeing that certainties can arise only through doubt, and results through experiment.” – Jung

“The greatest way to live with honor in this world is to be what we pretend to be” – Socrates

“Efficiency is doing things right; effectiveness is doing the right things” – Peter Drucker

“As I grow older, I pay less attention to what men say. I just watch what they do” – Andrew Carnegie

“Man sacrifices his health for money. Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health. And he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived.” – Dalai Lama

“Cunning… is but the low mimic of wisdom” – Plato

“Truth is ever to be found in simplicity, and not in the multiplicity and confusion of things” – Isaac Newton

“Every form of addiction is bad, no matter whether the narcotic be alcohol or morphine or idealism” – Carl Jung

“What’s right is what’s left if you do everything else wrong” – Robin Williams

“The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool” – Richard P. Feynman

“Aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you get neither” – C. S. Lewis

“Whenever I climb I am followed by a dog called ‘Ego'” – Friedrich Nietzsche

“There is more wisdom in your body than in your deepest philosophy” – Friedrich Nietzsche

“Knowledge will give you power, but character respect” – Bruce Lee

“A wise man can learn more from a foolish question than a fool can learn from a wise answer” – Bruce Lee

“Follow your bliss and the universe will open doors where there were only walls” – Joseph Campbell

“Character is higher than intellect. A great soul will be strong to live as well as think” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Nature and books belong to the eyes that see them” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Freedom – to walk free and own no superior” – Walt Whitman

“If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans” – Woody Allen

“When you come to a fork in the road, take it” – Yogi Berra

“No man can succeed in a line of endeavor which he does not like” – Napoleon Hill

“Whatever you do, do well, for when you go to the grave there will be no work or planning or knowledge or wisdom” – Ecclesiastes 9:1

“You can’t build your reputation on what you’re going to do” – Henry Ford

“Action should not be confused with haste” – Lee Iacoca

“People forget how fast you did a job – but they remember how well you did it” – Howard W. Newton

“The godly give good advice to their friends, the wicked lead them astray” – Proverbs 12:26

“It is pleasant to see dreams come true, but fools will not turn from evil to attain them” – Proverbs 13:19

“Most people are willing to adapt not because they see the light but because they feel the heat” – L. Thomas Holdcroft

“The foolish and the dead alone never change their opinions” – James R. Lowell

“The bamboo which bends is stronger than the oak that resists” – Japanese proverb

“Adversity causes some men to break and others to break records” – John Dobbert

“Happiness or joy is the emotional state that proceeds from the achievement of one’s values. Suffering is the emotional state that proceeds from a negation or destruction of one’s values.” – Nathaniel Brandon

“Behold the turtle, he makes progress only when he sticks his neck out” – James B. Conant

“A man of courage is also full of faith” – Cicero

“Act brave. The world steps aside for the man who knows where he’s going” – D.S Jordan

“It’s easy to be brave from a safe distance” – Aesop

“A prudent one foresees the danger ahead and takes precaution. The simpleton goes blindly on and suffers the consequences” – Proverbs 27:12

“Part of the problem today is that we have a surplus of simple answers and a shortage of simple problems.” – Henry Thoreau

“We make our plans, but the lord determines our steps” – Proverbs 16:9

“You capacity to say “no” determines your capacity to say “yes” to greater things” – E. Stanley Jones

“We make our decisions and then our decisions turn around and make us” – R.W Boreham

“We forge the chains we wear in life” – Charles Dickens

“God gives the nuts, but he does not crack them.” – Franz Kafka

“No choice is also a choice” – Jewish Proverb

“Once the facts are clear, the decision jumps at you” – Peter F. Drucker

“Nothing ranks a man so quickly as his skill in selecting things that are really worthwhile. Every day brings the necessity of keen discrimination. Not always is it a choice between good and bad, but between good and the best.” – A.P Gouthey

“The man who has not learned to say No will be a weak if not a wretched man as long as he lives.” – A. Maclaren

“A gilded No is more satisfactory than a dry yes” – Baltasar Gracian

“A guilty conscience is the mother of invention” – Carolyn Wells

“The collapse of self-esteem is not reached in a day, a week, or a month: it is the cumulative result of a long succession of defaults, evasions, and irrationalities – a long succession of failures to use one’s mind properly” – Nathaniel Branden

“If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there” – Lewis Carroll

“By working faithfully 8 hours a day, you may eventually get to be the boss and work 12 hours a day” – Robert Frost

“Time isn’t a commodity, something you pass around like a cake. Time is the substance of life. When anyone asks you to give your time, they’re really asking for a chunk of your life.” – Antoinette Bosco

“The brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out; the brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. The brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want it badly enough” – Randy Pausch

“A smart man learns from his mistakes. A wise man learns from the mistakes of others.” – Latin Proverb

“The tragedy of life doesn’t lie in not reaching your goal. The tragedy lies in having no goal to reach” – Benjamin Mays

“In a gold rush, don’t dig for gold, sell shovels!” – Unknown

“What you seek is seeking you.” – Rumi

“Moral indignation is a standard strategy for endowing the idiot with dignity.” Marshall McLuhan

“Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.” – Anaïs Nin

“Not Dead, Can’t Quit.” – Navy SEAL, Richard Machowicz

“We are always getting to live, but never living” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

“The most effective form of socialization is achieved when people identify so thoroughly with the social order that they no longer can imagine themselves breaking any of its rules” Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

“Men are not afraid of external things, but of how they view them” – Epictetus

“Gradually I learned to be indifferent to myself and my deficiencies; I came to center my attention increasingly upon external objects: the state of the world, various branches of knowledge, individuals for whom I felt affection.” – Bertrand Russell

“I would rather gain one true cause than rule the kingdom of Persia” – Democritus

“Happiness does not reside in wealth and money, it lies in rightness and many-sidedness.” – Democritus

“Blessed is he who has found his work; let him ask no other blessedness” -Thomas Carlyle.

“The future will belong not only to the educated man, but to the man who is educated to use his leisure wisely” – C.K. Brightbill

“Whoever is delighted in solitude is either a wild beast or a god” – Francis Bacon

“He who desires but acts not breeds pestilence.” – Blake

“I also feared boredom and mediocrity much more than I feared failure. For me, great is better than terrible, and terrible is better than mediocre, because terrible at least gives life flavor.” – Ray Dalio

“Life can only be understood backward, it must be lived forward” – Kierkegaard

“The first half of our lives are ruined by parents, and second half by our children” – Clarence Darrow

“A life of ease is a difficult pursuit” – William Cowper

“A well-spent day brings happy sleep, so a life well-spent brings happy death.” – Leonardo Da Vinci
They may trip seven times but each time they will rise again. But one calamity is enough to lay the wicked low. – Proverbs 24:16
Good planning and hard work leads to prosperity, but hasty shortcuts lead to poverty. – Proverbs 21:5
Nothing is so common as unsuccessful men with talent. They only lack determination. – Charles Swindoll
“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.” – Carl Jung #quote
Thoreau: “If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.”
“The more responsibility you voluntarily take on, the more deep meaning and glory you get. Young people are starving to hear that. You’re way more than you think. Stand up, burst out of your bonds, do something difficult and heroic..That’s a necessary message.” Jordan Peterson
“Everyone holds his fortune in his own hands. But it’s the same with that type of artistic activity as with all others: We are merely born with the capability to do it. The skill to mold the material into what we want must be learned and attentively cultivated.” – Van Goethe
“Do not talk about giftedness, inborn talents! One can name great men of all kinds who were very little gifted. They acquired greatness, became ‘geniuses’ (as we put it), through qualities the lack of which no one who knew what they were would boast of: they all pos¬sessed that seriousness of the efficient workman which first learns to con¬struct the parts properly before it ventures to fashion a great whole; they allowed themselves time for it, because they took more pleasure in making the little, secondary things well than in the effect of a dazzling whole” – Nietzsche
“One does not accumulate but eliminate. It is not daily increase but daily decrease. The height of cultivation always runs to simplicity.” — Bruce Lee
Reason is a wise man’s guide; example, the fool’s – Welsh Proverb #quote
Fools have no interest in understanding; they only want to air their own opinions – Proverbs 18:2
It is human to stand with the crowd, it is divine to stand alone. It is manlike to follow the people, to drift with the tide. it is godlike to follow a principle, to stem the tide.- John Maxwell
It is natural to compromise conscience and follow the social and religious fashion, for the sake of gain or pleasure; it is divine to sacrifice both on the altar of truth and duty.- John Maxwell
Our strength is seen in the things we stand for; our weakness is seen in the things we fall for. – Theodore Epp
A wise youth works hard all summer; a youth who sleeps away the hour of opportunity brings shame – Proverbs 10:5
Make hay while the sun shines – English Proverb
If you are patient in one amount of anger, you will escape a hundred days of sorrow – Chinese Proverb
Adopt the pace of nature, her secret is patience – Ralph Waldo Emerson
A diamond is a chunk of coal that stuck to its job – Leonardo Da Vinci
The fears of the wicked will come true, so will the hopes of the godly – Proverbs 10:24
Pessimist: one who, when he has a choice between two evils, chooses both – Oscar Wilde #quote
“Man needs difficulties. They are necessary for health.” – Carl Jung
“Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.” – Albert Einstein #quotes
Ideas spring from a source that is not contained within one man’s personal life. We do not create them; they create us. Knowledge rests not upon truth alone, but upon error also. – Carl Jung
We wish to hear only of unequivocal results: and completely forget that these results can only be brought about when we have ventured into and emerged again from the darkness. – Jung
The serious problems of life, however, are never fully solved. If it should for once appear that they are, thisg is the sign that something has been lost. The meaning and design of a problem seem not to lie in its solution, but in our working at it incessantly. – Carl Jung
The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift. – Einstein
A great man? I always see merely the play-actor of his own ideal – Nietzsche
“Hide not your talents, they for use were made,
What’s a sundial in the shade?” – Benjamin Franklin
For all sad words of tongue and pen, The saddest are these, ‘It might have been’.— John Greenleaf Whittier
“Sometimes the wrong train can take us to the right place.”— Paulo Coelho
“The universe is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.” ― Eden Phillpotts

“But to play this game you must be all in. And the great thing about life is that you’re already all in. Why not pick the best thing possible that you can do? Why not do that? Maybe you can justify your wretched existence to yourself that way.” – @jordanbpeterson
“If the world were clear, art would not exist” – Camus
Do not be held a cheat, even though it is impossible to live today without being one. Let your greatest cunning lie in covering up what looks like cunning – Baltasar Gracián, 1601-1658.
Without culture, and the relative freedom it implies, society, even when perfect, is but a jungle. This is why any authentic creation is a gift to the future. – Camus
A man is more a man through the things he keeps to himself than through those he says – camus
“Art and nothing but art, we have art in order not to die of the truth.” – Nietzsche
If the world were clear, art would not exist – Camus
One recognizes one’s course by discovering the paths that stray from it. – Camus
Prize intensity more than extensity. Perfection resides in quality, not quantity. Extent alone never rises above mediocrity, and it is the misfortune of men with wide general interests that while they would like to have their finger in every pie, they have one in none -B. Gracián
For conscience moves swiftly or withdraws within itself. It has to be caught on the wing, at that barely perceptible moment when it glances fleetingly at itself. The everyday man does not enjoy tarrying. Everything, on the contrary, hurries him onward. – Albert Camus
To become the founder of a new religion one must be psychologically infallible in one’s knowledge of a certain average type of souls who have not yet recognized that they belong together. – Nietzsche
Men are so simple of mind, and so much dominated by their immediate needs, that a deceitful man will always find plenty who are ready to be deceived. – Machiavelli
Machiavelli said that necessity is what compels men to action, and absent the necessity, only rot and decay remain.
For nonconformity the world whips you with its displeasure. – Emerson
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– Emerson
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. – Emerson
Men imagine that they communicate their virtue or vice only by overt actions, and do not see that virtue or vice emit a breath every moment. – Emerson
Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up. – Thomas Edison
We lie in the lap of immense intelligence, which makes us receivers of its truth and organs of its activity – Emerson
God loves to help him who strives to help himself. – Aeschylus
Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative and creation, there is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings and material assistance which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now. – Van Goethe
Man is timid and apologetic; he is no longer upright; he dares not say ‘I think,’ ‘I am,’ but quotes some saint or sage. He is ashamed before the blade of grass or the blowing rose. – Emerson
Vitality shows in not only the ability to persist but the ability to start over. – F. Scott Fitzgerald
I will not hide my tastes or aversions. I will so trust that what is deep is holy – Emerson
What you love to think about, dream about, speak about, learn about and create about is your genius. Don’t water down your natural style or contort yourself into some idealized version of who you think you should be.– Marie Forleo
And truly it demands something godlike in him who has cast off the common motives of humanity, and has ventured to trust himself for a taskmaster – Emerson
Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself. – Leo Tolstoy
Discontent is the want of self-reliance: it is infirmity of will. – Emerson
No one is free who is not master of himself. – Pythagoras
You cannot teach a man anything; you can only help him find it within himself. – Galileo
A political victory, a rise of rents, the recovery of your sick, or the return of your absent friend, or some other favorable event, raises your spirits, and you think good days are preparing for you. Do not believe it. Nothing can bring you peace but yourself.– Emerson
I care not so much what I am to others as what I am to myself. – Michel de Montaigne
One cannot by fair dealing, and with¬out injury to others, satisfy the nobles, but you can satisfy the people, for their object is more righteous than that of the nobles, the latter wishing to oppress, while the former only desire not to be oppressed – Machiavelli
“Pride is ugly in all men, it is worse than cruelty, which is the worst of sins, and humility is better than clemency, which is the best of good deeds.” – Al-Jahiz
“Any man who tries to be good all the time is bound to come to ruin among the great number who are not good.” Machiavelli
Men are so simple of mind, and so much dominated by their immediate needs, that a deceitful man will always find plenty who are ready to be deceived. – Machiavelli
I think that it is better to be impetuous than cautious, for fortune is a woman, and it is necessary, if you wish to master her, to conquer her by force; and it can be seen that she lets herself be overcome by the bold rather than by those who proceed coldly. – Machiavelli
For the wounds and every other evil that men inflict upon themselves spontaneously, and of their own choice, are in the long run less painful than those inflicted by others. (Niccolò Machiavelli, 1469-1527)
When they made sovereignty hereditary, the children degenerated from their fathers; far from trying to equal their father’s virtues, they considered that a prince had nothing to do than to excel all the rest in idleness, indulgence, and every other variety of pleasure-Machiavelli
It must be considered that there is nothing more difficult to carry out, nor more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to handle, than to initiate a new order of things.Niccolò Machiavelli, 1469-1527
He who desires or attempts to reform the government of a state, and wishes to have it accepted, must at least retain the semblance of the old forms. For the great majority of mankind are satisfied with appearances, as though they were realities.- Machiavelli
The wish to acquire is in truth very natural and com¬mon, and men always do so when they can, and for this they will be praised not blamed; but when they cannot do so, yet wish to do so by any means, then there is folly and blame. – Machiavelli
“Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.”
― Epicurus
“Hard choices, easy life. Easy choices, hard life.” — Jerzy Gregorek

Of all the disorders of the soul, envy is the only one no one confesses to. – Plutarch
In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s mind there are few. —Shunryu Suzuki, Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind

Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that. – Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass.

Consider the lilies of the field . . . they neither toil nor spin. – Mathew 6:28
You desire to live “according to Nature”? Oh, you noble Stoics, what fraud of words! Imagine a being like Nature, boundlessly extravagant, boundlessly indifferent, without purpose or consideration, at once fruitful and barren and uncertain. – Nietzsche
“Things that matter most must never be at the mercy of things that matter least.” —Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“Our labour preserves us from three great evils — weariness, vice, and want.” Candide, Voltaire
When you are an anvil, hold you still. When you are a hammer, strike your fill – G. Herbert
Stick to one thing.
“This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man” – Hamlet, Shakespeare
A shrewd man knows that others when they seek him do not seek him, but their advantage in him and by him.- Baltasar Gracian

When to change the conversation? When they talk scandal – Baltasar Gracian

Never have a companion who casts you in the shade – Baltasar Gracian

All human errors stem from impatience, a premature breaking off of a methodical approach, an ostensible pinning down of an ostensible object – Kafka

Speech was given us to conceal our thoughts – Voltaire

Try to frequent the company of your betters, in books and in life; that is the most wholesome society; learn to admire rightly; the great pleasure in life is that. Note what great men admired; they admired great things. Narrow spirits admire basley and worship meanly – Thackeray

“That which you most need will be found where you least want to look” – Jung

Nature has made up her mind that what cannot defend itself shall not be defended. – RALPH WALDO EMERSON, 1803-1882
Without war human beings stagnate in comfort and affluence and lose the capacity for great thoughts and feelings, they become cynical and subside into barbarism. – FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY, 1821-1881

Against war it can be said: it makes the victor stupid, the defeated malicious. In favor: through producing these two effects it barbarizes and therefore makes more natural; it is the hibernation time of culture, mankind emerges from it stronger for good and evil. – NIETZSCHE

A great part of courage is the courage of having done the thing before. -Ralph Waldo Emerson
“The first principle is that you must not fool yourself – and you are the easiest person to fool.”— Richard Feynman
“The truth buttresses you most thoroughly against the vicissitudes of being – that’s your salvation. The truth, the spoken truth.” – Jordan Peterson

“Never forget what you are, for surely the world will not. Make it your strength. Then it can never be your weakness. Armour yourself in it, and it will never be used to hurt you.” ― George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones

“The secret to doing good research is always to be a little underemployed. You waste years by not being able to waste hours.”
— Amos Tversky

When you’re speaking properly you’ll experience a feeling of integration and strength. When you’re speaking deceitfully you feel you’re starting to come apart at the seams. What you need to do is practice only saying things that make you feel stronger – J Peterson

12rulesforlife

The greatest discovery of my generation is the fact that human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind. – William James

Unfortunately there is no doubt about the fact that man is, as a whole, less good than he imagines himself or wants to be. Everyone carries a shadow, and the less it is embodied in the individual’s conscious life, the blacker and denser it is. —Carl Jung

“I have a realistic grasp of my own strengths and weaknesses. My mind is my weapon. My brother has his sword, King Robert has his warhammer, and I have my mind… and a mind needs books as a sword needs a whetstone, if it is to keep its edge. That’s why I read so much, Jon Snow.”

“Fill your bowl to the brim
and it will spill.
Keep sharpening your knife
and it will blunt.
Chase after money and security
and your heart will never unclench.
Care about people’s approval
and you will be their prisoner. Do your work, then step back.
The only path to serenity.” – Lao Tzu

“When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.” – Lao Tzu

“It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.” —J. Krishnamurti

“In the end, winning is sleeping better.” —Jodie Foster

To go too far is as bad as to fall short.–Confucius (551?-479 B.C.)

The thing of it is, we must live with the living – Montaigne

The demons of the past are always knocking at your door. They always want you to slip. While you are good at keeping them out, it is important to let them have expression sometimes, lest you become a prisoner of your shadow. – F. Smiley

If the deal of modernity is to give up meaning for power, then the historic deal – one that you can only make with yourself, is the sacrifice of modernity, to attain power through meaning. – F. Smiley
If it is dangerous to make a friend acquainted with the perfections of one’s beloved, because he also may find her charming and desirable, no less is the reverse danger, that he may perplex us by his dissent. – Goethe

The natural end of life is not senility but wisdom – C.G. Jung

For Lacan, language is a gift as dangerous to humanity as the horse was to the Trojans: it offers itself to our use free of charge, but once we accept it, it colonizes us. – Zizek

The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.
—Archilochus
THE OLD MUSICIANS STAY WHERE THEY ARE AND BECOME LIKE MUSEUM
PIECES UNDER GLASS, SAFE, EASY TO UNDERSTAND, PLAYING THAT TIRED OLD
SHIT OVER AND OVER AGAIN…. BEBOP WAS ABOUT CHANGE, ABOUT
EVOLUTION. IT WASN’T ABOUT STANDING STILL AND BECOMING SAFE.
—Miles Davis

THUS ONE’S VICTORIES IN BATTLE CANNOT BE REPEATED—THEY TAKE THEIR
FORM IN RESPONSE TO INEXHAUSTIBLY CHANGING CIRCUMSTANCES…. IT CAN
BE LIKENED TO WATER, AS WATER VARIES ITS FLOW ACCORDING TO THE FALL
OF THE LAND.
—Sun Tzu

PEOPLE WISH TO BE SETTLED; ONLY AS FAR AS THEY ARE UNSETTLED IS
THERE ANY HOPE FOR THEM.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
NOW THERE ARE…INDIVIDUALS WHO WOULD RATHER PERISH THAN WORK
WITHOUT TAKING PLEASURE IN THEIR WORK; THEY ARE CHOOSY…AND HAVE
NO USE FOR AMPLE REWARDS IF THE WORK IS NOT ITSELF THE REWARD OF
REWARDS…. THEY DO NOT FEAR BOREDOM AS MUCH AS WORK WITHOUT
PLEASURE..
—Friedrich Nietzsche
ALL OF MAN’S TROUBLES COME FROM NOT KNOWING HOW TO SIT STILL,
ALONE IN A ROOM.
—Blaise Pascal

“If you are depressed you are living in the past.
If you are anxious you are living in the future.
If you are at peace you are living in the present.” ― Lao Tzu

1 drink not from mere joy in wine nor to scoff
at faith—no, only to forget myself for a moment,
that only do I want of intoxication, that alone.
— O m a r K h a y y a m
From the child of five to myself is but a step. But
from the new-born baby to the child of five is an
appalling distance.
— L e o T o l st o i
Men are so necessarily mad that not to be mad would amount to another form of madness – Pascal
“The opposite of the religious fanatic is not the fanatical atheist but the gentle cynic who cares not whether there is a god or not.” – Eric Hoffer
“An empty head is not really empty; it is stuffed with rubbish. Hence the difficulty of forcing anything into an empty head.” – Eric Hoffer
“Far more crucial than what we know or do not know is what we do not want to know.” – Eric Hoffer
“For many people, an excuse is better than an achievement because an achievement, no matter how great, leaves you having to prove yourself again in the future; but an excuse can last for life. – Eric Hoffer
“Naivete in grownups is often charming; but when coupled with vanity it is indistinguishable from stupidity.” – Eric Hoffer
“Propaganda does not deceive people; it merely helps them to deceive themselves.” – Eric Hoffer
“The opposite of the religious fanatic is not the fanatical atheist but the gentle cynic who cares not whether there is a god or not.” – Eric Hoffer
The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt. – Bertrand Russell

“The real problem of humanity is the following: we have paleolithic emotions; medieval institutions; and god-like technology. – E.O Wilson
If you hide from your truth, then you hide from yourself. Then what are you? A puppet. You’re the puppet of some coward, dictator, second rate philosopher, or idiotic idea. But it’s not you living your life…then you lose your life, and you lose your soul too. #JordanPeterson
Recognizing yourself as the locus of evil gives you self-respect. #jordanpeterson
Common sense will not accomplish great things. Simply become insane and
desperate.
—LORD NAOSHIGE

There are too many mediocre books which exist just to entertain your mind. Therefore, read only those books which are accepted without doubt as good.
—Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Only when we forget what we were taught do we start to have real knowledge.
—Henry David Thoreau

Your will is not good until you have changed the habits of your intellect, and they will improve only when they follow the eternal laws of life.
—LUCIUS Annaeus Seneca

A wise man seeks wisdom; a madman thinks that he has found it. —Persian proverb
You can achieve wisdom in three ways. The first way is the
way of meditation. This is the most noble way. The second
way is the way of imitation. This is the easiest and least
satisfying way. Thirdly, there is the way of experience.
This is the most difficult way.
—Confucius
Would you have a great empire? Rule over yourself.
—Publius Syrus

Self-perfection should be one’s primary motivation. If
you are truthful to yourself, you will never be satisfied
with yourself. – Tolstoy
Work all the time. Do not think that work is a disaster for
you, and do not seek praise or reward for your work.
—Marcus Aurelius
The most outstanding gifts can be destroyed by idleness.
—Michel de Montaigne

There are thousands of ways which lead to deception, and
there is only one way which leads to the truth.
—Jean Jacques Rousseau
Do not seek pleasure everywhere, but always be ready find it.
—John Ruskin
The best way to live joyfully is to believe that life was given for joy. When joy disappears, look for your mistake. —Marcus Aurelius
Do not be concerned too much with what will happen. Everything which happens will be good and useful for you.
—Epictetus
Wise people cannot be sufficiently educated, and educated people cannot be sufficiently wise.
—Lao-Tzu

We have plunged down a cataract of progress which sweeps us on into the
future with ever wilder violence the farther it takes us from our roots.
—Carl Jung

Know then thyself, presume not God to scan, The proper study of Mankind is Man. Plac’d on this isthmus of a middle state, A Being darkly wise, and rudely great: With too much knowledge for the Sceptic side, With too much weakness for the Stoic’s pride, He hangs between; in doubt to act, or rest; In doubt to deem himself a God, or Beast; In doubt his Mind or Body to prefer; Born but to die, and reas’ning but to err; Alike in ignorance, his reason such, Whether he thinks too little, or too much. – Alexander Pope

Ridley, Matt. The Red Queen (Penguin Press Science) (p. 336). Penguin Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.
The fool who persists in his folly will become wise – William Blake
If it is dangerous to make a friend acquainted with the perfections of one’s
beloved, because he also may find her charming and desirable, no less is the
reverse danger, that he may perplex us by his dissent.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
• “To attain knowledge add things every day. To attain wisdom subtract things every day.” (Lao-tzu)