Week 2019-22

"There is no arithmetician like him who hath learned to number his days, and to apply his heart unto wisdom." (George Swinnock, "The Epistle Dedicatory", 1868)

"The weakness of a soul is proportionate to the number of truths that must be kept from it." (Eric Hoffer, "The Passionate State of Mind", 1955)

"A man can only rise, conquer, and achieve by lifting up his thoughts. He can only remain weak, and abject, and miserable by refusing to lift up his thoughts." (James Allen, "As a Man Thinketh", 1903)

"The helps offered to improve the mind consist in certain ways of thinking which facilitate thinking." (Gottfried W Leibniz)

"Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in a while, or the light won't come in.” (Isaac Asimov)

"One must talk about everything according to its nature, how it comes to be and how it grows. Men have talked about the world without paying attention to the world of their own minds, as if they were asleep or absent-minded." (Heraclitus)

"If you want truly to understand something, try to change it." (Kurt Lewin)

"Those who can win a war well can rarely make a good peace and those who could make a good peace would never have won the war." (Sir Winston Churchill)

"This terror then and darkness of mind must be dispelled not by the rays of the sun and glittering shafts of light, but by the aspect and law of nature." (Lucretius)

"One must talk about everything according to its nature, how it comes to be and how it grows. Men have talked about the world without paying attention to the world of their own minds, as if they were asleep or absent-minded." (Heraclitus)

Week 2017-47

"A faith that cannot survive collision with the truth is not worth many regrets." (Arthur C. Clarke)

"Truth is not to be found outside. No teacher, no scripture can give it to you. It is inside you and if you wish to attain it, seek your own company. Be with yourself." (Osho)

"People tend to assume everyone else should think the same way they do, and this contributes to much human misery." (Keith Cowan)

"The one real object of education is to leave a man in the condition of continually asking questions." (Bishop Mandell Creighton)

"A wise man takes a step at a time; he establishes one foot before he takes up the other: an old place should not be forsaken recklessly." (Sanskrit saying)

“No man learns to know his inmost nature by introspection, for he rates himself sometimes too low, and often too high, by his own measurement. Man knows himself only by comparing himself with other men; it is life that touches his genuine worth.” (Goethe)

“Flow with whatever is happening and let your mind be free. Stay centered by accepting whatever you are doing. This is the ultimate.” (Chuang-Tzu)

“In order to improve the mind, we ought less to learn, than to contemplate.” (Rene Descartes)

“He is happiest, be he king or peasant, who finds peace in his home.” (Goethe)

“We all learn by experience, and your lesson this time is that you should never lose sight of the alternative.” (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, “The Return of Sherlock Holmes”, 1905)

Week 2017-43

"The essence of strategy is choosing what not to do." (Michael Porter)

"The greater is the circle of light, the greater is the boundary of the darkness by which it is confined." (Joseph Priestley)

"One of the elementary rules of nature is that, in the absence of a law prohibiting an event or phenomenon, it is bound to occur with some degree of probability. To put it simply and crudely: Anything that can happen does happen." (Kenneth W Ford)

"To choose a road, to stop habitually and ask whether you have not gone astray, that is the true method.” (Louis Pasteur)

"Responsibility is not doing as we are told, that's obedience. Responsibility is doing what is right.” (Simon Sinek)

"The adventurer is within us, and he contests for our favor with the social man we are obliged to be." (William Bolitho)

"We search for ways to see ourselves. The computer is a new mirror, the first psychological machine. Beyond its nature as an analytical engine lies its second nature as an evocative object." (Sherry Turkle)

"Iron rusts from disuse; stagnant water loses its purity and in cold weather becomes frozen; even so does inaction sap the vigor of the mind." (Leonardo da Vinci)

"Begin challenging your own assumptions. Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in awhile, or the light won’t come in." (Alan Alda)

“He who every morning plans the transaction of the day and follows out that plan, carries a thread that will guide him through the maze of the most busy life. But where no plan is laid, where the disposal of time is surrendered merely to the chance of incidence, chaos will soon reign." (Victor Hugo)

"Nothing is more powerful for your future than being a gatherer of good ideas and information. That’s called doing your homework." (Jim Rohn)

Week 2017-08

"Perhaps the most important thing we can undertake toward the reduction of fear is to make it easier for people to accept themselves; to like themselves." (Bonaro Overstreet)

"Pick the assumptions to pieces till the stuff they are made of is exposed to plain view - this is the cardinal rule for understanding the basis of our beliefs. (Eric Temple Bell, "The Search for Truth")

"If you limit your actions in life to things that nobody can possibly find fault with, you will not do much." (Lewis Carroll)

"So many things are possible just as long as you don't know they're impossible." (Norton Juster)

"You will, if you’re wise and know the art of travel, let yourself go on the stream of the unknown and accept whatever comes in the spirit in which the gods may offer it." (Freya Stark)

"In my experience, there is only one motivation, and that is desire. No reasons or principle contain it or stand against it." (Jane Smiley)

"A man's maturity consists in having found again the seriousness one had as a child at play." (Friedrich Nietzsche)

"Travel and change of place impart new vigor to the mind." (Seneca the Younger)

"It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation." (Herman Melville)

"There can only be one solution to any problem: a change in attitude and in consciousness." (Gregg Braden)

Week 2017-03

[#assumptions, #errors]
"Most deadly errors arise from obsolete assumptions." (Frank Herbert, “Dune - Children of Dune”)

[#wisdom, #knowledge]
"To wisdom belongs the intellectual apprehension of eternal things; to knowledge, the rational knowledge of temporal things." (Saint Augustine)

[#skills, #growth]
"I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor." (Henry David Thoreau)

[#love, #desire]
"Perhaps the reason we are unable to love is that we yearn to be loved, that is, we demand something (love) from our partner instead of delivering ourselves up to him demand-free and asking for nothing but his company." (Milan Kundera)

[#letting go, #control]
"Letting go doesn't mean that you don't care about someone anymore. It's just realizing that the only person you really have control over is yourself." (Deborah Reber)

[#limits, #balance]
"Sometimes we have to travel to the edge of ourselves to find the center." (Buck Ghosthorse)

[#change, #perception]
"If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change the way you think about it." (Mary Engelbreit)

[#appearances, #errors]
"Be suspicious of anything that works perfectly - it’s probably because two errors are canceling each other out." (Dave Bartley)

[#teaching, #practice]
"Never forget that, at the most, the teacher can give you fifteen percent of the art. The rest you have to get for yourself through practice and hard work." (Tan Soh Tin)

[#reason, #action]
"Those who will not reason perish in the act: Those who will not act perish for that reason." (W.H. Auden)