The Density of Wisdom: 28 Timeless Teachings of Epictetus

Epictetus believed that philosophy wasnt something you taught, but yet a way of living. One of
his most famous excerpts that I love referring back to says:
How long are you going to wait before you demand the best for yourself and in no instance
bypass the discriminations of reason? You have been given the principles that you ought to
endorse, and you have endorsed them. What kind of teacher, then, are you still waiting for in
order to refer your self-improvement to him? You are no longer a boy, but a full-grown man.
If you are careless and lazy now and keep putting things off and always deferring the day
after which you will attend to yourself, you will not notice that you are making no progress,
but you will live and die as someone quite ordinary.
If anyone tells you that a certain person speaks ill of you, do not make excuses about what is
said of you but answer,
He was ignorant of my other faults, else he would not have mentioned these alone.
Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants.
Dont explain your philosophy. Embody it.
There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which are
beyond the power or our will.
Dont just say you have read books. Show that through them you have learned to think
better, to be a more discriminating and reflective person. Books are the training weights of
the mind. They are very helpful, but it would be a bad mistake to suppose that one has made
progress simply by having internalized their contents.
Man is not worried by real problems so much as by his imagined anxieties about real
problems
First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do.
If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid.
The key is to keep company only with people who uplift you, whose presence calls forth
your best.
Its not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.
Any person capable of angering you becomes your master; he can anger you only when you
permit yourself to be disturbed by him.
He who laughs at himself never runs out of things to laugh at.

Other peoples views and troubles can be contagious. Dont sabotage yourself by unwittingly
adopting negative, unproductive attitudes through your associations with others.
Freedom is the only worthy goal in life. It is won by disregarding things that lie beyond our
control.
Only the educated are free.
Circumstances dont make the man, they only reveal him to himself.
It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows.
Nature hath given men one tongue but two ears, that we may hear from others twice as
much as we speak.
To accuse others for ones own misfortune is a sign of want of education. To accuse oneself
shows that ones education has begun. To accuse neither oneself nor others shows that ones
education is complete.
People are not disturbed by things, but by the views they take of them.
You are a little soul carrying around a corpse
First learn the meaning of what you say, and then speak.
I laugh at those who think they can damage me. They do not know who I am, they do not
know what I think, they cannot even touch the things which are really mine and with which I
live.
Attach yourself to what is spiritually superior, regardless of what other people think or do.
Hold to your true aspirations no matter what is going on around you.

The greater the difficulty, the more glory in surmounting it. Skillful pilots gain their
reputation from storms and tempests.
No man is free who is not master of himself.
He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those
which he has.
Seek not the good in external things; seek it in yourselves.

11 Quotes About Self-Improvement that can Inspire the

Changes You Want to See in Yourself
There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to
your former self.
Ernest Hemingway
Those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.
George Bernard Shaw
A proud man is always looking down on things and people; and, of course, as long as you are
looking down, you cannot see something that is above you.
C.S. Lewis
Make the most of yourself.for that is all there is of you.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Always dream and shoot higher than you know you can do. Do not bother just to be better
than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself.
William Faulkner
Once we accept our limits, we go beyond them.
Albert Einstein
What we call our destiny is truly our character and that character can be altered. The
knowledge that we are responsible for our actions and attitudes does not need to be
discouraging, because it also means that we are free to change this destiny. One is not in
bondage to the past, which has shaped our feelings, to race, inheritance, background. All this
can be altered if we have the courage to examine how it formed us. We can alter the
chemistry provided we have the courage to dissect the elements.
Anas Nin
Formal education will make you a living; self-education will make you a fortune.
Jim Rohn
When you see a good person, think of becoming like her/him. When you see someone not
so good, reflect on your own weak points.
Confucius
There is only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and thats your
own self.
Aldous HuxleyHow noble and good everyone could be if, every evening before falling
asleep, they were to recall to their minds the events of the whole day and consider exactly
what has been good and bad. Then without realizing it, you try to improve yourself at the
start of each new day.
Anne Frank

Imagination and Reality: The Brilliant Mind of Tom Waits

We are buried beneath the weight of information, which is being confused with knowledge;
quantity is being confused with abundance and wealth with happiness.
Songs really are like a form of time travel because they really have moved forward in a
bubble. Everyone whos connected with it, the studios gone, the musicians are gone, and the
only thing thats left is this recording which was only about a three-minute period maybe 70
years ago.
Writing songs is like capturing birds without killing them. Sometimes you end up with
nothing but a mouthful of feathers.
You know what I really love? The CD players in a car. How when you put the CD right up by
the slot, it actually takes it out of your hand, like its hungry. It pulls it in, and you feel like it
wants more silver discs.

If youre in the middle of the ocean with no flippers and no life preserver and you hear a
helicopter, this is music. You have to adjust to your needs at the moment.
Im one of those guys that is still a bit afraid of the telephone, its implications for
conversation. I still wonder if the jukebox might be the death of live music.
Mostly, I straddle reality and the imagination. My reality needs imagination like a bulb
needs a socket. My imagination needs reality like a blind man needs a cane.
I have an audio stigmatism whereby I hear things wrong I have audio illusions.
Most people dont care if youre telling them the truth or if youre telling them a lie, as long
as theyre entertained by it.
The big print giveth and the small print taketh away.
I saw a crow building a nest, I was watching him very carefully, I was kind of stalking him and
he was aware of it. And you know what they do when they become aware of someone
stalking them when they build a nest, which is a very vulnerable place to be? They build a
decoy nest. Its just for you.
I hate Disneyland. It primes our kids for Las Vegas.
Dont look back, because someone might be gaining on you.
I dont know if any genuine, meaningful change could ever result from a song. Its kind of
like throwing peanuts at a gorilla.

30 of the Greatest Quotes from Abraham Lincoln about Life

and Success
Folks are usually about as happy as they make their minds up to be.
When I do good, I feel good. When I do bad, I feel bad. Thats my religion.
The best way to predict your future is to create it
You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.
I am a slow walker, but I never walk back.
When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on.
You can tell the greatness of someone by what makes them angry
All I have learned, I learned from books.
Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.
The best thing about the future is that it comes one day at a time.
The better part of ones life consists of his friendships.
Character is like a tree and reputation its shadow. The shadow is what we think it is and the
tree is the real thing.
I do not think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday.
I am not concerned that you have fallen I am concerned that you arise.
I dont know who my grandfather was; I am much more concerned to know what his
grandson will be.
My great concern is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with your
failure.
You can have anything you want if you want it badly enough. You can be anything you want
to be, do anything you set out to accomplish if you hold to that desire with singleness of
purpose.
Life is hard but so very beautiful

Whatever you are, be a good one.

Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?
And, in the end, it is not the years in your life that count, its the life in your years.
That some achieve great success, is proof to all that others can achieve it as well.
Im a success today because I had a friend who believed in me and I didnt have the heart to
let him down.
Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a mans character, give him
power.
It often requires more courage to dare to do right than to fear to do wrong.
Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle.
Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any one
thing.
We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have
roses.

Those who look for the bad in people will surely find it.
I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to succeed, but I am
bound to live up to what light I have.

20 Inspirational Quotes from the Godfather of PersonalDevelopment, Jim Rohn

Motivation alone is not enough. If you have an idiot and you motivate him, now you have a
motivated idiot.
Days are expensive. When you spend a day you have one less day to spend. So make sure
you spend each one wisely.
No one else makes us angry. We make ourselves angry when we surrender control of our
attitude.
One of the greatest gifts you can give to anyone is the gift of your attention.

You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.
Dont join an easy crowd; you wont grow. Go where the expectations and the demands to
perform are high.
If you want to be a leader who attracts quality people, the key is to become a person of
quality yourself.
Formal education will make you a living; self-education will make you a fortune.
Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment
Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going.
Dont wish it was easier wish you were better. Dont wish for less problems wish for more
skills. Dont wish for less challenge wish for more wisdom
The challenge of leadership is to be strong, but not rude; be kind, but not weak; be bold, but
not bully; be thoughtful, but not lazy; be humble, but not timid; be proud, but not arrogant;
have humor, but without folly.
If you really want to do something, youll find a way. If you dont, youll find an excuse.
Happiness is not something you postpone for the future; it is something you design for the
present.
We must all suffer one of two things: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret.
If you are not willing to risk the unusual, you will have to settle for the ordinary.

If you dont design your own life plan, chances are youll fall into someone elses plan. And
guess what they have planned for you? Not much.
Either you run the day or the day runs you.
The worst thing one can do is not to try, to be aware of what one wants and not give in to it,
to spend years in silent hurt wondering if something could have materialized never
knowing.
Success is nothing more than a few simple disciplines, practiced every day.

20 Quotes from Jack Kerouac

Something good will come of all things yet
The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to
be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a
commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like
spiders across the stars.
One day I will find the right words, and they will be simple.
Things are so hard to figure out when you live from day to day in this feverish and silly
world.
Live, travel, adventure, bless, and dont be sorry.
There was nowhere to go but everywhere, so just keep on rolling under the stars.
The only truth is music.

My fault, my failure, is not in the passions I have, but in my lack of control of them.
What is that feeling when youre driving away from people and they recede on the plain till
you see their specks dispersing? its the too-huge world vaulting us, and its good-bye. But
we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies.
A pain stabbed my heart, as it did every time I saw a girl I loved who was going the opposite
direction in this too-big world.
Happiness consists in realizing it is all a great strange dream
Because in the end, you wont remember the time you spent working in the office or
mowing your lawn. Climb that goddamn mountain.

The best teacher is experience and not through someones distorted point of view
I saw that my life was a vast glowing empty page and I could do anything I wanted.
Houses are full of things that gather dust
Great things are not accomplished by those who yield to trends and fads and popular
opinion.

Dont use the phone. People are never ready to answer it. Use poetry.
I realized these were all the snapshots which our children would look at someday with
wonder, thinking their parents had lived smooth, well-ordered lives and got up in the
morning to walk proudly on the sidewalks of life, never dreaming the raggedy madness and
riot of our actual lives, our actual night, the hell of it, the senseless emptiness.

My witness is the empty sky.

I had nothing to offer anybody except my own confusion.
Bringing the East to the West: 20 Eye Opening Quotes from Alan Watts
Trying to define yourself is like trying to bite your own teeth.

We seldom realize, for example that our most private thoughts and emotions are not
actually our own. For we think in terms of languages and images which we did not invent, but
which were given to us by our society.

Man suffers only because he takes seriously what the gods made for fun.

Muddy water is best cleared by leaving it alone.

This is the real secret of life to be completely engaged with what you are doing in the here
and now. And instead of calling it work, realize it is play.

The meaning of life is just to be alive. It is so plain and so obvious and so simple. And yet,
everybody rushes around in a great panic as if it were necessary to achieve something
beyond themselves.

To have faith is to trust yourself to the water. When you swim you dont grab hold of the
water, because if you do you will sink and drown. Instead you relax, and float.

You are an aperture through which the universe is looking at and exploring itself.

The menu is not the meal.

The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the
dance.

Advice? I dont have advice. Stop aspiring and start writing. If youre writing, youre a writer.
Write like youre a goddamn death row inmate and the governor is out of the country and
theres no chance for a pardon. Write like youre clinging to the edge of a cliff, white
knuckles, on your last breath, and youve got just one last thing to say, like youre a bird flying
over us and you can see everything, and please, for Gods sake, tell us something that will
save us from ourselves. Take a deep breath and tell us your deepest, darkest secret, so we
can wipe our brow and know that were not alone. Write like you have a message from the
king. Or dont. Who knows, maybe youre one of the lucky ones who doesnt have to.

You are a function of what the whole universe is doing in the same way that a wave is a
function of what the whole ocean is doing.

I have realized that the past and future are real illusions, that they exist in the present,
which is what there is and all there is.

The art of living is neither careless drifting on the one hand nor fearful clinging to the past
on the other. It consists in being sensitive to each moment, in regarding it as utterly new and
unique, in having the mind open and wholly receptive.

Through our eyes, the universe is perceiving itself. Through our ears, the universe is listening
to its harmonies. We are the witnesses through which the universe becomes conscious of its
glory, of its magnificence.

The more a thing tends to be permanent, the more it tends to be lifeless.

Try to imagine what it will be like to go to sleep and never wake up now try to imagine
what it was like to wake up having never gone to sleep.

Every intelligent individual wants to know what makes him tick, and yet is at once fascinated
and frustrated by the fact that oneself is the most difficult of all things to know.

A scholar tries to learn something everyday; a student of Buddhism tries to unlearn

something daily.

Things are as they are. Looking out into the universe at night, we make no comparisons
between right and wrong stars, nor between well and badly arranged constellations.

20 Quotes to Keep In Mind When Things Get Tough

Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.
-Winston Churchill
Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success.
-Henry Ford
Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are
doing, you will be successful.
-Albert Schweitzer

Try not to become a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value.
-Albert Einstein
Dont aim for success if you want it; just do what you love and believe in, and it will come
naturally.
-David Frost
Think twice before you speak, because your words and influence will plant the seed of either
success or failure in the mind of another.
-Napoleon Hill
Success is how high you bounce when you hit bottom.
-George S. Patton
Success depends upon previous preparation, and without such preparation there is sure to
be failure.
-Confucius
The most important single ingredient in the formula of success is knowing how to get along
with people.
-Theodore Roosevelt
Ive failed over and over and over again in my life and that is why I succeed.
-Michael Jordan
Frustration, although quite painful at times, is a very positive and essential part of success.
-Bo Bennett
Develop success from failures. Discouragement and failure are two of the surest stepping
stones to success.

-Dale Carnegie

Success is not a good teacher, failure makes you humble.

-Shahrukh Khan
Failure is success if we learn from it.
-Malcolm Forbes
One secret of success in life is for a man to be ready for his opportunity when it comes.
-Benjamin Disraeli
The real secret of success is enthusiasm.
-Walter Chrysler
I honestly think it is better to be a failure at something you love than to be a success at
something you hate.
-George Burns

In order to succeed you must fail, so that you know what not to do the next time.
-Anthony J. DAngelo
Success is the progressive realization of predetermined, worthwhile, personal goals.
-Paul J. Meyer
Definteness of purpose is the starting point of all achievement
-W. Clement Stone

30 Albert Einstein quotes

1. Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas
imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution.

2. Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds. The
mediocre mind is incapable of understanding the man who refuses to bow blindly to
conventional prejudices and chooses instead to express his opinions courageously and
honestly.
3. I, at any rate, am convinced that He (God) does not throw dice.
4. The important thing is not to stop questioning; curiosity has its own reason for existing.
5. Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.
6. Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and Im not sure about the
universe.
7. Falling in love is not at all the most stupid thing that people do but gravitation cannot
be held responsible for it.
8. The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental
emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science.
9. Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.
10. Try not to become a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value
11. The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.

12. The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits.
13. Weakness of attitude becomes weakness of character.
14. Pure mathematics is, in its way, the poetry of logical ideas.

15. Nature shows us only the tail of the lion. But I do not doubt that the lion belongs to it
even though he cannot at once reveal himself because of his enormous size.

16. Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile.

17. Its not that Im so smart, its just that I stay with problems longer.
18. My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals
himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind.

20. I never think of the future. It comes soon enough.

21. Do not worry about your difficulties in mathematics, I can assure you that mine are all
greater
22. In order to form an immaculate member of a flock of sheep one must, above all, be a
sheep.
23. The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible.
24. Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.

25. Truth is what stands the test of experience.

26. Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving
27. Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
28. Human knowledge and skills alone cannot lead humanity to a happy and dignified life.
Humanity has every reason to place the proclaimers of high moral standards and values
above the discoverers of objective truth.

29. Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the
prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such
opinions.
30. Common sense is nothing more than a deposit of prejudices laid down by the mind
before you reach eighteen
There are many many other quotes that could have made this list. He is truly one of the most
brilliant minds our world has seen.

Maya Angelou
There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.
What youre supposed to do when you dont like a thing is change it. If you cant change it,
change the way you think about it. Dont complain.
When someone shows you who they are, believe them; the first time.

You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced
by them.
We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through
to achieve that beauty.
I love to see a young girl go out and grab the world by the lapels. Lifes a bitch. Youve got to
go out and kick ass.
Courage is the most important of all the virtues because, without courage, you cant practice
any other virtue consistently.

I dont trust people who dont love themselves and tell me, I love you. There is an African
saying that is: Be careful when a naked person offers you a shirt.
Music was my refuge. I could crawl into the space between the notes and curl my back to
loneliness.
You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced
by them.
Success is liking yourself, liking what you do, and liking how you do it.

My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion,
some compassion, some humor, and some style.
I did then what I knew how to do. Now that I know better, I do better.
Have enough courage to trust love one more time and always one more time.
You can only become truly accomplished at something you love. Dont make money your
goal. Instead pursue the things you love doing and then do them so well that people cant
take their eyes off of you.

10 Mark Cuban Quotes

When youve got 10,000 people trying to do the same thing, why would you want to be
number 10,001?
Every no gets me closer to a yes.

What Ive learned in these 11 years is you just got to stay focused and believe in yourself
and trust your own ability and judgment.
What Ive learned is that if you really want to be successful at something, youll find that you
put the time in. You wont just ask somebody if its a good idea, youll go figure out if its a
good idea.
Sweat equity is the most valuable equity there is. Know your business and industry better
than anyone else in the world. Love what you do or dont do it.
I love to compete. To me, business is the ultimate sport. Its always on. There is always
someone trying to beat me.
Work like there is someone working 24 hours a day to take it away from you.

Its not in the dreaming, its in the doing.

Doesnt matter if the glass is half-empty or half-full. All that matters is that you are the one
pouring the water.
Wherever I see people doing something the way its always been done, the way its
supposed to be done, following the same old trends, well, thats just a big red flag to me to
go look somewhere else.

23 of the Greatest Quotes from Charles Bukowski

I am a series of small victories and large defeats and I am as amazed as any other that I have
gotten from there to here.
We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take
us.
Here are a few others that I think we can all relate to:
Pain doesnt make anything, nor does poverty. The artist is there first. What becomes of him
depends upon his luck. If his luck is good (worldly-speaking) he becomes a bad artist. If his
luck is bad, he becomes a good one.

It was true that I didnt have much ambition, but there ought to be a place for people
without ambition, I mean a better place than the one usually reserved. How in the hell could
a man enjoy being awakened at 6:30 a.m. by an alarm clock, leap out of bed, dress, forcefeed, shit, piss, brush teeth and hair, and fight traffic to get to a place where essentially you
made lots of money for somebody else and were asked to be grateful for the opportunity to
do so?
the way to create art is to burn and destroy ordinary concepts and to substitute them with
new truths that run down from the top of the head
What matters most is how well you walk through the fire.
You are marvelous the gods wait to delight in you.
Shes mad but shes magic, theres no lie in her fire.
Sex is interesting but not totally important. I mean, its not even as important (physically) as
excretion. A man can go 70 years without a piece of ass but he can die in a week without a
bowel movement.

Boring damned people. All over the earth. Propagating more boring damned people. What a
horror show. The earth swarmed with them.
Dont feel sorry for me because I am alone, for even at the most terrible moments, humor is
my companion.
On such jobs men become tired. They experience a weariness beyond fatigue. They say mad,
brilliant things. Out of my head, I cussed and talked and cracked jokes and sang. Hell boils
with laughter.

If you want to know where God is, ask a drunk.

I would say that Mickey Mouse has a greater influence on the American public than
Shakespeare, Milton, Dante, Rabelais, Shostakovitch, Lenin, and/or Van Gogh. Which says
What? about the American Public. Disneyland remains the central attraction of Southern
California, but the graveyard remains our reality.
The free soul is rare, but you know it when you see it basically because you feel good, very
good, when you are near or with them.

Were all going to die, all of us, what a circus! That alone should make us love each other but
it doesnt. We are terrorized and flattened by trivialities; we are eaten up by nothing.
Find what you love and let it kill you.
Some people never go crazy, what truly horrible lives they must live.
I wanted the whole world or nothing.
The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubt, while the stupid
people are full of confidence.
Nobody can save you but yourself and youre worth saving. Its a war not easily won but if
anything is worth winning then this is it.
If it doesnt come bursting out of you in spite of everything, dont do it.

Ive had so many knives stuck into me, when they hand me a flower, I cant quite make out
what it is. It takes time.
Sometimes you climb out of bed in the morning and you think, Im not going to make it, but
you laugh inside remembering all the times youve felt that way.

18 Quotes to Live By From Top CEOs

1. Ideas are commodity. Execution of them is not.
Michael Dell, Dell
2. Trust your instincts.
Este Lauder, Este Lauder
3. The way to get started is to quit talking and start doing.
Walt Disney, Disney
4. Were not going to invest a dollar that doesnt make sense to invest.
Marc Lore, Jet
5. What do you need to start a business? Three simple things: know your product better
than anyone, know your customer, and have a burning desire to succeed.
Dave Thomas, Wendys
6. Your people determine your product.
Taso Du Val, Toptal
7. Make your team feel respected, empowered and genuinely excited about the companys
mission.
Tim Westergen, Pandora
8. Dont worry about failure; you only have to be right once.
Drew Houston, Dropbox

9. The common question that gets asked in business is, why? Thats a good question, but an
equally valid question is, why not?
Jeff Bezos, Amazon
10. Be simple and reliable
Jan Koum, WhatsApp
11. Always deliver more than expected.
Larry Page, Google
12. When something is important enough, you do it even if the odds are not in your favor.
Elon Musk, SpaceX

13. Theres an entrepreneur right now, scared to death, making excuses, saying, Its not the
right time just yet. Theres no such thing as a good time.
Kevin Plank, Under Armour
14. I always did something I was a little not ready to do. I think thats how you grow. When
theres that moment of Wow, Im not really sure I can do this, and you push through those
moments, thats when you have a breakthrough.
Marissa Mayer, Yahoo
15. You dont learn to walk by following rules. You learn by doing and falling over.
Richard Branson, Virgin Group
16. Chase the vision, not the money; the money will end up following you.
Tony Hsieh, Zappos

17. Capital isnt scarce. Vision is.

Sam Walton, Wal-Mart
18. Life is too short to do mediocre work and it is definitely too short to build shitty things.
Stewart Butterfield, Slack

30 of The Most Profound Quotes From Plato

Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a harder battle.
Courage is knowing what not to fear.
Every heart sings a song, incomplete, until another heart whispers back. Those who wish to
sing always find a song. At the touch of a lover, everyone becomes a poet.
Wise men speak because they have something to say; fools because they have to say
something.
We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men
are afraid of the light.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.
Do not train a child to learn by force or harshness; but direct them to it by what amuses
their minds, so that you may be better able to discover with accuracy the peculiar bent of the
genius of each.
The heaviest penalty for declining to rule is to be ruled by someone inferior to yourself.
According to Greek mythology, humans were originally created with four arms, four legs and
a head with two faces. Fearing their power, Zeus split them into two separate parts,
condemning them to spend their lives in search of their other halves.
Love is a serious mental disease.
Never discourage anyonewho continually makes progress, no matter how slow.
One of the penalties of refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed
by your inferiors.
good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a
way around the laws

I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing.
There is truth in wine and children

Ignorance, the root and stem of every evil.

Im trying to think, dont confuse me with facts.
If women are expected to do the same work as men, we must teach them the same things.
and when one of them meets the other half, the actual half of himself, whether he be a
lover of youth or a lover of another sort, the pair are lost in an amazement of love and
friendship and intimacy and one will not be out of the others sight, as I may say, even for a
moment
The measure of a man is what he does with power.
Those who tell the stories rule society.
The madness of love is the greatest of heavens blessings
Human behavior flows from three main sources: desire, emotion, and knowledge.
There are three classes of men; lovers of wisdom, lovers of honor, and lovers of gain.
Education is teaching our children to desire the right things.
When men speak ill of thee, live so as nobody may believe them.

There are two things a person should never be angry at, what they can help, and what they
cannot.
In politics we presume that everyone who knows how to get votes knows how to administer
a city or a state. When we are ill we do not ask for the handsomest physician, or the most
eloquent one.
How can you prove whether at this moment we are sleeping, and all our thoughts are a
dream; or whether we are awake, and talking to one another in the waking state?

60 Timeless Inspirational Quotes

1) Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve.
-Napoleon Hill
2) Success is going from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm.
-Winston Churchill
3) Start by doing whats necessary; then do whats possible; and suddenly you are doing the
impossible.
-Francis of Assisi
4) What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within
us.
-Henry S. Haskins
5) The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.
-Lao Tzu
6) My mother said to me, If you are a soldier, you will become a general. If you are a monk,
you will become the Pope. Instead, I was a painter, and became Picasso.
Pablo Picasso.
7) The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched they
must be felt with the heart.
-Helen Keller
8) It is never too late to be what you might have been.
-George Eliot
9) Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value.
-Albert Einstein
10) Dream big and dare to fail.
-Norman Vaughan
11) In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.
-Albert Einstein
12) I cant change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my
destination.
-Jimmy Dean

13) All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them.
-Walt Disney
14) Two roads diverged in a wood, and I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all
the difference.
-Robert Frost
15) What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

16) Until youre ready to look foolish, youll never have the possibility of being great.
-Cher
17) Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection we can catch excellence.
-Vince Lombardi
18) The best way to predict the future is to invent it.
-Alan Kay
19) I attribute my success to this: I never gave or took any excuse.
-Florence Nightingale
20) You must be the change you wish to see in the world.
-Gandhi
21) Whether you think you can, or think you cant, youre probably right.
-Henry Ford
22) Nothing is impossible, the word itself says Im possible!
-Audrey Hepburn
23) Life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it.
-Charles R. Swindoll

24) You miss 100% of the shots you dont take.

-Wayne Gretzky
25) Tough times never last, but tough people do.
-Dr. Robert Schuller

26) Many of lifes failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success
when they gave up.
-Thomas Edison
27) Memories of our lives, of our works and our deeds will continue in others.
-Rosa Parks
28) If you cannot do great things, do small things in a great way.
-Napoleon Hill
29) Ive missed more than 9000 shots in my career. Ive lost almost 300 games. 26 times Ive
been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. Ive failed over and over and over
again in my life. And that is why I succeed.
-Michael Jordan
30) Keep your face to the sunshine and you can never see the shadow.
-Helen Keller
31) Keep away from people who try to belittle your dreams. Small people always do that, but
the really great ones make you feel that you, too, can become great.
-Mark Twain
32) Try to be a rainbow in someones cloud.
-Maya Angelou
33) If opportunity doesnt knock, build a door.
-Milton Berle
34) Definiteness of purpose is the starting point of all achievement.
-W. Clement Stone
35) There is only one success: to be able to spend your life in your own way.
-Christopher Morley
36) When people hurt you over and over, think of them like sandpaper. They may scratch and
hurt you a bit, but in the end, you end up polished and they end up useless.
-Chris Colfer
37) Put your heart, mind, and soul into even your smallest acts. This is the secret of success.
-Swami Sivananda
38) An obstacle is often a stepping stone.
-William Prescott

39) Life is what happens to you while youre busy making other plans.
-John Lennon
40) The best way out is always through.
-Robert Frost
41) I am afraid we must make the world honest before we can honestly say to our children
that honesty is the best policy.
-George Bernard Shaw
42) We know what we are, but know not what we may be.
-William Shakespeare
43) Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor.
-Truman Capote
44) Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didnt do
than by the ones you did do, so throw off the bowlines, sail away from safe harbor, catch the
trade winds in your sails. Explore, Dream, Discover.
-Mark Twain

45) The power of imagination makes us infinite.

-John Muir
46) There are seven things that will destroy us:
Wealth without work;
Pleasure without conscience;
Knowledge without character;
Religion without sacrifice;
Politics without principle;
Science without humanity;
Business without ethics.
Gandhi
47) You make a living by what you get; you make a life by what you give.
-Winston Churchill
48) Life is 10% what happens to me and 90% of how I react to it.
-Charles Swindoll
49) Make each day your masterpiece.
-John Wooden

50) In looking for people to hire, you look for three qualities: integrity, intelligence, and
energy. And if they dont have the first, the other two will kill you.
-Warren Buffett
51) There are two primary choices in life: to accept conditions as they exist, or accept the
responsibility for changing them.
-Denis Waitley
52) The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they dont have any.
-Alice Walker
53) The best dreams happen when youre awake.
-Cherie Gilderbloom
54) When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life.
When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down
happy. They told me I didnt understand the assignment, and I told them they didnt
understand life.
-John Lennon
55) Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.
-John Wooden
56) The mind is everything. What you think you become.
-Buddha

57) Once you choose hope, anythings possible.

-Christopher Reeve
58) The simple act of paying attention can take you a long way.
-Keanu Reeves
59) A journey of a thousand leagues begins beneath ones feet.
-Lao Tzu
60) An unexamined life is not worth living.
-Socrates

22 Timeless Life Lessons from Aristotle

1. Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.
2. It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
3. Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet.
4. Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work.
5. It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light.
6. To avoid criticism say nothing, do nothing, be nothing.
7. 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.
8. The wise man does not expose himself needlessly to danger, since there are few things for
which he cares sufficiently; but he is willing, in great crises, to give even his life knowing
that under certain conditions it is not worthwhile to live.
9. The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal.
10. The young are permanently in a state resembling intoxication.
11. We become just by performing just action, temperate by performing temperate actions,
brave by performing brave action.
12. There is no great genius without a mixture of madness.
13. Those that know, do. Those that understand, teach.
14. To run away from trouble is a form of cowardice and, while it is true that the suicide
braves death, he does it not for some noble object but to escape some ill.
15. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.
16. We must no more ask whether the soul and body are one than ask whether the wax and
the figure impressed on it are one.

17. We praise a man who feels angry on the right grounds and against the right persons and
also in the right manner at the right moment and for the right length of time.

18. You will never do anything in this world without courage. It is the greatest quality of the
mind next to honor.
19. Youth is easily deceived because it is quick to hope.
20. What it lies in our power to do, it lies in our power not to do.
21. Whosoever is delighted in solitude is either a wild beast or a god.
22. Without friends no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods.

22 Quotes On Human Existence

Above all, dont lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes
to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all
respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love.
-Fyodor Dostoyevsky

There is some kind of a sweet innocence in being human- in not having to be just happy or
just sad- in the nature of being able to be both broken and whole, at the same time.
C. JoyBell C.
When you are dealing with difficulties and you feel like you dont have the strength to stand
anymore, do not allow yourself to see that as a sign of weakness, it is just a sign that you are
human. Allow someone who cares to be strong for you. It is easier to be strong for someone
else than it is it to be strong for yourself.
Pinkie Numa
To be human is, primarily, to embrace that we are human with strengths and weaknesses,
and that our humanity is preordained to seek the Truth, Good and Beauty as part of our
humanity. To be human is to be an agent of peace, justice, and reconciliation in our
community or society. To be human is to be heroic and generous in an unobtrusive way, free
from any selfish motive, with no media to show the litany of our good deeds. To be human is
to have time to listen to the story of a grieving soul, to give hope to the hopeless, to give love
to the unloved.
Danny Castillones Sillada

Being human means asking the questions of ones own being and living under the impact of
the answers given to this question. And, conversely, being human means receiving answers to
the questions of ones own being and asking questions under the impact of the answers.
Paul Tillich, Systematic Theology, Vol 1
Today a young man on acid realized that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow
vibration, that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively, there is no such
thing as death, life is only a dream, and we are the imagination of ourselves. Heres Tom with
the Weather.
Bill Hicks
We hold on so tightly, because were terrified of loss. We hold on till our hands bleed. And in
that self-shattering persistence, we fail to see the answer: Just let go.
-Yasmin Mogahed

We need people in our lives with whom we can be as open as possible. To have real
conversations with people may seem like such a simple, obvious suggestion, but it involves
courage and risk.
-Thomas Moore
Everyone has the heartbreak that shapes them in a way that they could never go back to the
innocence that they had before.
-Zooey Deschanel
When someone you love dies, you are given the gift of second chances. Their eulogy is a
reminder that the living can turn their lives around at any point. Youre not bound by the
past; that is who you used to be. Youre reminded that your feelings are not who you are, but
how you felt at that moment. Your bad choices defined you yesterday, but they are not who
you are today. Your future doesnt have to travel the same path with the same people. You
can start over. You dont have to apologize to people that wont listen. You dont have to
justify your feelings or actions, during a difficult time in your life. You dont have to put up
with people that are insecure and want you to fail. All you have to do is walk forward with a
positive outlook, and trust that God has a plan that is greater than the sorrow you left
behind. The people of quality that were meant to be in your life wont need you to explain
the beauty of your heart. They already understand what being human is-a roller coaster
ride of emotions during rainstorms and sunshine, sprinkled with moments when you can
almost reach the stars.
Shannon L. Alder
The best parts of being human are the parts you share.
Kyle Schmalenberg
There are two basic motivating forces: fear and love. When we are afraid, we pull back from
life. When we are in love, we open to all that life has to offer with passion, excitement, and
acceptance. We need to learn to love ourselves first, in all our glory and our imperfections. If
we cannot love ourselves, we cannot fully open to our ability to love others or our potential
to create. Evolution and all hopes for a better world rest in the fearlessness and open-hearted
vision of people who embrace life.
-John Lennon
We are afraid to care too much, for fear that the other person does not care at all.
-Eleanor Roosevelt
I think she was afraid to love sometimes. I think it scared her. She was the type to like things
that were concrete, like the ocean. Something you could point to and know what it was. I
think thats why she struggled with love. She couldnt touch it. She couldnt hold on to it and
make sure it never changed.
-Carrie Ryan

Sometimes people think they know you. They know a few facts about you, and they piece
you together in a way that makes sense to them. And if you dont know yourself very well,
you might even believe that they are right. But the truth is, that isnt you. That isnt you at
all.
-Leila Sales
But the struggles make you stronger and the changes make you wise. And happiness has its
own way of taking its sweet time.
-Gary Allen
Youll learn, as you get older, that rules are made to be broken. Be bold enough to live life
on your terms, and never, ever apologize for it. Go against the grain, refuse to conform, take
the road less traveled instead of the well-beaten path. Laugh in the face of adversity, and
leap before you look. Dance as though EVERYBODY is watching. March to the beat of your
own drummer. And stubbornly refuse to fit in.
-Mandy Hale

Once you truly believe youre worthy of love, you will never settle for anyones second best
treatment.
-Charles J. Orlando
Sometimes, I sit alone under the stars and think of the galaxies inside my heart, and truly
wonder if anyone will ever want to make sense of all that I am.
-Christopher Poindexter
The reason it hurts so much to separate is because our souls are connected. Maybe they
always have been and will be. Maybe weve lived a thousand lives before this one and in each
of them weve found each other. And maybe each time, weve been forced apart for the same
reasons. That means that this goodbye is both a goodbye for the past ten thousand years and
a prelude to what will come. When I look at you, I see your beauty and grace and know they
have grown stronger with every life you have lived. And I know I have spent every life before
this one searching for you. Not someone like you but you, for your soul and mine must
always come together. And then, for a reason neither of us understands, weve been forced
to say goodbye. I would love to tell you that everything will work out for us, and I promise to
do all I can to make sure it does. But if we never meet again and this is truly goodbye, I know
we will see each other again in another life. We will find each other again, and maybe the
stars will have changed, and we will not only love each other in that time, but for all the
times weve had before.
-Nicholas Sparks
I am the sum total of everything that went before me, of all I have been seen done, of
everything done-to-me. I am everyone everything whose being-in-the-world affected was
affected by mine. I am anything that happens after Im gone which would not have happened
if I had not come.
Salman Rushdie, Midnights Children