Week 2020-28

"Every now and then a man's mind is stretched by a new idea or sensation, and never shrinks back to its former dimensions." (Oliver W Holmes Sr., "The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table", 1858) 

"The more a man thinks the better adapted he becomes to thinking, and education is nothing if it is not the methodical creation of the habit of thinking. Precisely. Theoretically, education is a mental training aiming at greater intellectual elasticity, but the question is whether education does not often strain, instead of train, a mind." (Ernest Dimnet, "The Art of Thinking", 1928)

"Most mistakes in philosophy and logic occur because the human mind is apt to take the symbol for the reality." (Albert Einstein, "Cosmic Religion: With Other Opinions and Aphorisms" , 1931) 

"Peace of mind is that mental condition in which you have accepted the worst." (Lin Yutang, "The Importance of Living", 1937)

"The limits of thought are not so much set from outside, by the fullness or poverty of experiences that meet the mind, as from within, by the power of conception, the wealth of formulative notions with which the mind meets experiences." (Susanne Langer, "Philosophy in a New Key: A Study in the Symbolism of Reason, Rite, and Art", 1942) 

"Meditation is the direct means of eradicating the very cause of the majority of diseases, both mental and physical." (Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, "Meditation", 1962)

"The discipline of Zen consists in opening the mental eye in order to look into the very reason of existence." (D. T. Suzuki, "An Introduction to Zen Buddhism", 1964)

"The unknown, our own true nature, has the capacity to wake itself up when you start to fall in love with letting go of all the mental structures you hold onto. Contemplate this: there is no such thing as a true belief." (Steven Gray [Adyashanti], "Emptiness Dancing" , 2004)

"Integral wisdom involves a direct participation in every moment: the observer and the observed are dissolved in the light of pure awareness, and no mental concepts or attitudes are present to dim that light." (Lao Tzu) 

"The changes in our life must come from the impossibility to live otherwise than according to the demands of our conscience not from our mental resolution to try a new form of life." (Leo Tolstoy, [letter]) 

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 2019-23

"All differences in this world are of degree, and not of kind, because oneness is the secret of everything." (Swami Vivekananda)

"What I have learned, above all, is to keep marching forward because the best news is that since chance does play a role, one important factor in success is under our control: the number of at bats, the number of chances taken, the number of opportunities seized." (Leonard Mlodinow, "The Drunkard's Walk", 2008)

“There is a life and there is a death, and there are beauty and melancholy between.” (Albert Camus)

"In other living creatures the ignorance of themselves is nature, but in men it is a vice." (Boethius)

“Nature is filled with tendencies and obstructions. Extremes beget limitations, even as a river by its own swiftness creates obstructions for itself.” (Robert G Ingersoll)

"No great thing comes without a curse" (Sophocles)

"All truth is a shadow except the last. But every truth is substance in its own place, though it be but shadow in another place. And the shadow is a true shadow, as the substance is a true substance." (Isaac Pennington)

"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)

Week 2019-21

"The unknown, our own true nature, has the capacity to wake itself up when you start to fall in love with letting go of all the mental structures you hold onto. Contemplate this: there is no such thing as a true belief." (Adyashanti)

"Healing of the physical without the change in the mental and spiritual aspects brings little real help to the individual in the end. How true, because the mind and the body imprint and imitate each other. What we think, we become. What we become, we think. It's an insidious process that can predispose us to illness or it can lead us to health." (Edgar Cayce)

"The whole universe is composed of name and form. Whatever we see is either a compound of name and form, or simply name with form which is a mental image." (Swami Vivekananda)

"Imagination is the first step in creation whether in words or trifles. The mental pattern must always precede the material form." (William W Atkinson)

"Mental activity is like a deadly poisonous cobra. If we don't interfere with a cobra, how poisonous it may be, it simply goes its own away." (Ajahn Chah)

"To think that the world can ever change without changes in our mental models is folly." (Joseph Jaworski)

"Do not place hope in finding a secret technique. Polish the mind through ceaseless training; that is the key to effective techniques." (Kyuzo Mifune)

"Zen purposes to discipline the mind itself, to make it its own master, through an insight into its proper nature." (Daisetsu T Suzuki)

"The mind must always be in the state of 'flowing,' for when it stops anywhere that means the flow is interrupted and it is this interruption that is injurious to the well-being of the mind. In the case of the swordsman, it means death." (Takuan)

"A process cannot be understood by stopping it. Understanding must move with the flow of the process, must join it and flow with it." (Frank Herbert, "Dune", 1965)

Week 2018-21

[#thought, #belief]
"What we can or cannot do, what we consider possible or impossible, is rarely a function of our true capability. It is more likely a function of our beliefs about who we are." (Anthony Robbins, "Awaken the Giant Within")

[#identity, #quest]
"Seek out that particular mental attribute which makes you feel most deeply and vitally alive, along with which comes the inner voice which says, 'This is the real me,' and when you have found that attitude, follow it." (William James, "The Principles of Psychology")

[#limits, #imagination]
"To realize one's limitations marks the awakening of intellectual integrity, without which imagination, integrity and assiduity are barren." (Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin)

[#thought, #happiness]
"All that we are is made up of our thoughts; it is founded on our thoughts, it is made up of our thoughts. If a man speak or act with a pure thought, happiness will follow him, like a shadow that never leaves him." (Dhammapada)

[#human nature, #extremes]
"People want to hear about the extremes of human nature. They want things that are larger than their own lives, and more romantic, and not necessarily of their own experiences." (Richard Thompson)

[#truth, #meaning]
"Truth is something which can't be told in a few words. Those who simplify the universe only reduce the expansion of its meaning." (Anais Nin)

[#quest, #introspection]
“The nature of creation is that you have to go inside and dig out. The very nature of creation is not a performing glory on the outside, it’s a painful, difficult search within.” (Louise Nevelson)

[#emotions, #problem_solving]
"Emotions are far harder things to understand than algebra and geometry, yet we spend hours in elucidating mathematics and expect such a problem as that of human relationships to solve itself." (Frances G Wickes)

[#life, #perseverance]
"Life is not easy for any of us, but what of that? We must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves. We must believe that we are gifted in something, and that this thing, at whatever cost, must be attained." (Marie Curie)

[#time, #potential]
"The past, like the future, is indefinite and exists only as a spectrum of possibilities." (Stephen Hawking)

Week 2018-08: Aphorisms on Learning

"One of the things that limits our learning is our belief that we already know something." (L David Marquet, "Turn the Ship Around!", 2013)

“More important than learning how to recall things is finding ways to forget things that are cluttering the mind. “ (Eric Butterworth)

“We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn.” (Henry D Thoreau)

“No one has completed his education who has not learned to live with an insoluble problem.” (Edmund J Kiefer)

“A man eminent in learning has not even a little virtue if he fears to practice it. What precious things can be shown to a blind man when he holds a lamp in his hand?” (Hitopadesa)

“Learning dissipates many doubts, and causes things otherwise invisible to be seen, and is the eye of everyone who is not absolutely blind.” (Hitopadesa)

“He who has more learning than goodness is like a tree with many branches and few roots, which the first wind throws down; whilst he whose works are greater than his knowledge is like a tree with many roots and fewer branches, which all the winds of heaven cannot uproot.” (Talmud)

“We will discover the nature of our particular genius when we stop trying to conform to our own or to other people's models, learn to be ourselves, and allow our natural channel to open.” (Shakti Gawain)

“Learn to depend upon yourself by doing things in accordance with your own way of thinking.” (Grenville Kleiser)

“The trouble about man is twofold. He cannot learn truths which are too complicated; he forgets truths which are too simple.” (Dame Rebecca West)

“To learn new habits is everything, for it is to reach the substance of life. Life is but a tissue of habits.” (Henri Frederic)

"To learn in order to know is scandalous curiosity." (Bernard of Clairvaux, "Sermones in Cantica")

Week 2017-44

"The fact that logic cannot satisfy us awakens an almost insatiable hunger for the irrational." (A. N. Wilson)

"Education... has produced a vast population able to read but unable to distinguish what is worth reading." (G. M. Trevelyan)

"Some people study all their life, and at their death have learned everything but to think." (Demergu Dewar)

"A mind all logic is like a knife all blade. It makes the hand bleed that uses it." (Rabindranath Tagore)

"The great difficulty in education is to get experience out of ideas." (George Santayana)

"An educated mind is useless without a focused will, and dangerous without a loving heart." (Winfried Deijmann)

"A man should keep his little brain attic stocked with all the furniture that he is likely to use, and the rest he can put away in the lumber-room of his library, where he can get it if he wants it." (Arthur Conan Doyle)

"Between what is said and not meant, and what is meant and not said, most of love is lost." (Khalil Gibran)

"Confine yourself to observing and you always miss the point of your life. The object can be stated this way: Live the best life you can. Life is a game whose rules you learn if you leap into it and play it to the hilt. Otherwise, you are caught off balance, continually surprised by the shifting play. Non-players often whine and complain that luck always passes them by. They refuse to see that they can create some of their own luck." (Frank Herbert)

"One of the great dreams of man must be to find some place between the extremes of nature and civilization where it is possible to live without regret." (Barry Lopez)

Week 2017-39

"[...] the truth is strength that lies in the interior of the warrior: in his heart, his mind and his spirit [.] The heart is essential in helping the intellect to understand the spirit." (Miyamoto Musashi, “Book of Five Rings”)

"There are more fake guides, teachers in the world than stars. The real guide is the one who makes you see your inner beauty, not the one who wants to be admired and followed." ( Shams Tabrizi )

"It's the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting." (Paulo Coelho, “The Alchemist”)

"One is never so strong as when one is broken." (Hazrat Inayat Khan, “Thinking Like The Universe: The Sufi Path Of Awakening”)

"There is no greater power than the one others do not believe you possess." (Luis Marques, “Book of Orion”)

"I think knowing what you cannot do is more important than knowing what you can." ( Lucille Ball )

"If you go to thinking, take your heart with you. If you go to love, take your head with you. Love is empty without thinking, thinking hollow without love. (Carl Jung)

"Only love expands intelligence. To live in love is to accept the other and the conditions of his existence as a source of richness, not as opposition, restriction or limitation." (Humberto Maturana)

"Men become civilized, not in proportion to their willingness to believe, but in their readiness to doubt." (H. L. Mencken)

"There are no shortcuts to any place worth going."  (Helen Keller)

Week 2017-36

[#love, #life]
"If our heart were large enough to love life in all its detail, we would see that every instant is at once a giver and a plunderer.” (Gaston Bachelard)

[#success, #purpose]
"Two things are necessary for success in life; one is a sense of purpose and the other, a touch of madness." (John Harricharan)

[#life, #geometry]
"Mankind is not a circle with a single center but an ellipse with two focal points of which facts are one and ideas the other." (Victor Hugo, Les Misrables, 1862)

[#thought, #human nature]
"A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices." (William James)

[#journeys, #knowledge]
"A traveler without knowledge is like a bird without wings." (Musharif-Ud-Din)

[#happiness, #attitude]
"The greater part of our happiness or misery depends on our dispositions, and not on our circumstances." (Martha Washington)

[#reason, #passion]
"Reason, ruling alone, is a force confining;
And passion, unattended, is a flame that burns its own destruction." ( Khalil Gibran )

[#errors, #self control]
"When you are offended at any man's fault, turn to yourself and study your own failings. Then you will forget your anger." (Epictetus)

[#theory, #practice]
"He who loves practice without theory is like the sailor who boards ship without a rudder and compass and never knows where he may cast." (Leonardo da Vinci)

[#oder, #theory]
“All order, I've come to understand, is theoretical, unreal - a harmless, sensible, smiling mask men slide between the two great, dark realities, the self and the world - two snake pits." (John Gardner, “Grendel”)

Week 2017-35

"Thus all our dignity lies in thought. By thought we must raise ourselves, not by space and time, which we cannot fill." (Blaise Pascal)

"When the mind loses its feeling for elegance, it grows corrupt and grovelling, and seeks in the crowd what ought to be found at home." (Walter Savage Landor)

"Much knowledge of divine things is lost to us through want of faith." (Heraclitus)

"Education is the knowledge of how to use the whole of oneself. Many men use but one or two faculties out of the score with which they are endowed. A man is educated who knows how to make a tool of every faculty how to open it, how to keep it sharp, and how to apply it to all practical purposes." (Henry Ward Beecher)

"The fountain of content must spring up in the mind; and he who has so little knowledge of human nature as to seek happiness by changing anything but his own disposition, will waste his life in fruitless efforts, and multiply the griefs which he proposes to remove." (Samuel Johnson)

"Contemplation is to knowledge, what digestion is to food the way to get life out of it." (Tryon Edwards)

"A consciousness of inward knowledge gives confidence to the outward behavior, which, of all things, is the best to grace a man in his carriage." (Owen Feltham)

"If you look at the world through rose-coloured spectacles, you cannot tell which parts of it really are rosy and which parts just look rosy." (Oliver Penrose, “An Asymmetric World”)

Week 2017-24

"Man has such a predilection for systems and abstract deductions that he is ready to distort the truth intentionally, he is ready to deny the evidence of his senses only to justify his logic." (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)

"Only in the eyes of love you can find infinity." (Sorin Cerin, “Wisdom Collection: The Book of Wisdom”)

"If there is anything more dangerous to the life of the mind than having no independent commitment to ideas, it is having an excess of commitment to some special and constricting idea." (Richard Hofstadter)

"The problem with introspection is that it has no end." (Philip K. Dick)

"Keep me away from the wisdom which does not cry, the philosophy which does not laugh and the greatness which does not bow before children" (Khalil Gibran)

"If you live the sacred and despise the ordinary, you are still bobbing in the ocean of delusion." (Lin-chi)

"You can only apprehend the Infinite by a faculty superior to reason, by entering into a state in which you are your finite self no longer." (Plotinus, "Enneads")

"The essence of all things is one and the same, perfectly calm and tranquil, and shows no sign of 'becoming'; ignorance, however, is in its blindness and delusion oblivious of Enlightenment, and, on that account, cannot recognize truthfully all those conditions, differences, and activities which characterize the phenomena of the Universe." (Ashvaghosha, "The Awakening of Faith", cca. 2nd century)

"All action results from thought, so it is thoughts that matter." (Sai Baba)

"Civilization begins with order, grows with liberty and dies with chaos." (Will Durant)

Week 2017-22

"Cleansing the mind does not require water. Practicing generosity does not require wealth." (Sam van Schaik, “Tibetan Zen”)

"The only way to survive eternity is to be able to appreciate each moment." (Lauren Kate Fallen)

"When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy." (Rumi)

"The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience." (Eleanor Roosevelt)

"Do not confine your children to your own learning, for they were born in another time." (Hebrew proverb)

"Silence is not an absence of sound but rather a shifting of attention toward sounds that speak to the soul." (Thomas Moore)

"People generally see what they look for, and hear what they listen for." (Harper Lee, "To Kill a Mockingbird")

"A person who becomes fatigued when unhappy is useless. Meeting with people should be a matter of quickly grasping their temperament and reacting appropriately […] This is a function of both the heart and words." (Miyamoto Musashi & Yamamoto Tsunetomo, "The Samurai Series: The Book of Five Rings, Bushido & Hagakure")

"The book to read is not the one that thinks for you but the one which makes you think." (Harper Lee)

"No matter what people call you, you are just who you are. Keep to this truth. You must ask yourself how is it you want to live your life. We live and we die. This is the truth that we can only face alone. No one can help us. So consider carefully, what prevents you from living the way you want to live your life." (Shams Tabrizi)

Week 2017-18

"To be satisfied with a little, is the greatest wisdom; and he that increaseth his riches, increaseth his cares; but a contented mind is a hidden treasure, and trouble findeth it not." (Akhenaton)

"The truth which makes men free is for the most part the truth which men prefer not to hear." (Herbert Agar)

"An act of imagination is an act of self-acceptance." (Richard Hugo, "Triggering Town")

"We are on a journey to keep an appointment with whatever we are." (Gene Roddenberry)

"Belief can convert the mundane into the miraculous." (Charles F Glassman)

"Every man is the sum total of his reactions to experience. As your experiences differ and multiply, you become a different man, and hence your perspective changes. This goes on and on. Every reaction is a learning process; every significant experience alters your perspective." ( Hunter S. Thompson )

"Staring at the light of another blinds the view of our own." (Charles F Glassman)

"Man is not what he thinks he is, he is what he hides." (André Malraux)

"I do not fix problems. I fix my thinking. Then problems fix themselves." (Louise L. Hay)

Week 2017-15

"If we do not believe within ourselves this deeply rooted feeling that there is something higher than ourselves, we shall never find the strength to evolve into something higher." (Rudolf Steiner)

"We come to love not by finding the perfect person but by learning to see an imperfect person perfectly." (Sam Keen)
  
"A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within." (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

"In faith there is enough light for those who want to believe and enough shadows to blind those who don't." (Blaise Pascal)

"Student: Master tell me, is death the end or is it the beginning?
Master: Tell me, is the water in the river which flows, new or old?" (Zen story)

"True spirituality is to be aware that if we are interdependent with everything and everyone else, even the smallest, least significant thought, word and action has real consequences throughout the universe." (Sogyal Rinpoche)

"He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how." (Friedrich Nietzsche)

"Dare to reach out your hand into the darkness, to pull another hand into the light." (Norman B. Rice)

"Man is not the creature of circumstances. Circumstances are the creatures of men." (Benjamin Disraeli)

"I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had an underlying truth." (Umberto Eco)

Week 2017-14

[#duality, #light]
"There are two kinds of light - the glow that illumines, and the glare that obscures." (James Thurber)

[#wisdom, #thought]
"Thinking and doing, doing and thinking, these are the sum of all wisdom. Both must move ever onward in life, to and fro, like breathing in and breathing out. Whoever makes it a rule to test action by thought, thought by action, cannot falter, and if he does, will soon find his way back to the right road." (Goethe)

[#mastery, #strength]
"The only means of strengthening one's intellect is to make up one's mind about nothing - to let the mind be a thoroughfare for all thoughts." (John Keats)

[#character, #mastery]
"You cannot dream yourself into a character; you must hammer and forge yourself one." (Henry David Thoreau)

[#belief]
"An idealist believes the short run doesn't count. A cynic believes the long run doesn't matter. A realist believes that what is done or left undone in the short run determines the long run." (Sydney J. Harris)

[#feelings, #thought]
"Life is a tragedy for those who feel, and a comedy for those who think." (Jean de La Bruyère)

[#patience]
"To endure the unendurable is true endurance." (Japanese saying)

[#simplicity]
"If people never did silly things, nothing intelligent would ever get done." (Ludwig Wittgenstein)

[#action, #love]
"The grand essentials of life are something to do, something to love, something to hope for." (Thomas Chalmers)

[#knowledge]
"Nothing is enough for the man to whom enough is too little." (Epicurus)

Week 2017-10

"Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfils the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things." (Winston Churchill)

"Where shall we begin? There is no beginning. Start where you arrive. Stop before what entices you. And work! You will enter little by little into the entirety. Method will be born in proportion to your interest." (Auguste Rodin)

"The most dangerous of our prejudices reign in ourselves against ourselves. To dissolve them is a creative act." (Hugo von Hofmannsthal)

"[…] there are no backwaters. There is only one river, and we are all in it." (Scott Russell Sanders, “Writing from the Center”, 1997)

"There is another interesting paradox here: by immersing ourselves in what we love, we find ourselves. We do not lose ourselves. One does not lose one’s identity by falling in love." (Lukas Foss)

"If you look for the truth outside yourself, it gets farther and farther away." (Tung-shan)

"If one will just think about what he is to do for the day at hand, he will be able to do anything. If it is a single day's work, one should be able to put up with it. Tomorrow, too, is but a single day." (Hagakure)

"Maturity of mind is the capacity to endure uncertainty." (John Finley)

"No object is mysterious. The mystery is in your eye." (Elizabeth Bowen)

"There is no passion to be found playing small - in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living." (Nelson Mandela)

Week 2017-06

"Speed is useful only if you are running in the right direction." (Joel Barker)

"Man stands in his own shadow and wonders why it’s dark." (Zen saying)

"The difficulty lies, not in the new ideas, but in escaping the old ones, which ramify, for those brought up as most of us have been, into every corner of our minds." (John Maynard Keynes)

"They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself." (Andy Warhol)

"Do not permit the events of your daily life to bind you, but never withdraw yourself from them." (Zen saying)

"True happiness consists not in the multitude of friends, but in their worth and choice." (Samuel Johnson)

"Chaos in the world brings uneasiness, but it also allows the opportunity for creativity and growth." (Tom Barrett)

"To uncover the truth is not difficult, but to follow the truth is formidable." (Chinese saying)

"Never underestimate the joy people derive from hearing something they already know." (Enrico Fermi)

Week 2017-01

"One does not set out in search of new lands without being willing to be alone on an empty sea." (André Gide)

"Human beings know a lot of things, some of which are true, and apply them. When we like the results, we call it wisdom."(Herbert Simon)

"Suffering is a challenge; when you suffer you are challenged, when there is a problem you are challenged. When you encounter the problem, only then do you grow. More insecurity, more growth; more security, less growth. If everything is secure around you, you are already in your grave, you are no longer alive. Life exists in danger, life always exists in the possibility of going astray. But one who goes astray can come back, one who fails can succeed." (Osho)

"If you optimize everything, you will always be unhappy." (Donald Knuth)

"Always aim at complete harmony of thought and word and deed. Always aim at purifying your thoughts and everything will be well." (Gandhi)

"That which we persist in doing becomes easier, not that the task itself has become easier, but that our ability to perform it has improved." (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

"We need to learn to set our course by the stars, not by the lights of every passing ship." (Omar Bradley)

"Not ignorance, but ignorance of ignorance is the death of knowledge." (Alfred N Whitehead)

"It is a fine thing to have ability, but the ability to discover ability in others is the true test." (Elbert Hubbard)

"This is the awe-inspiring universe of magic: There are no atoms, only waves and motions all around. Here, you discard all belief in barriers to understanding. You put aside understanding itself. This universe cannot be seen, cannot be heard, cannot be detected in any way by fixed perceptions. It is the ultimate void where no preordained screens occur upon which forms may be projected. You have only one awareness here - the screen of the magi: Imagination! Here, you learn what it is to be human. You are a creator of order, of beautiful shapes and systems, an organizer of chaos." (Frank Herbert, “Heretics of Dune”, 1984)

Week 2016-47

"The critical ingredient is getting off your butt and doing something. It's as simple as that. A lot of people have ideas, but there are few who decide to do something about them now. Not tomorrow. Not next week. But today. The true entrepreneur is a doer, not a dreamer." (Nolan Bushnell)

"Wisdom is the right use of knowledge. To know is not to be wise. Many men know a great deal, and are all the greater fools for it. There is no fool so great a fool as a knowing fool. But to know how to use knowledge is to have wisdom" (Charles Haddon Spurgeon)

"To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live according to its dictates a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity, and trust. It is to solve some of the problems of life, not only theoretically, but practically." (Henry David Thoreau)

"What is the recipe for successful achievement? To my mind there are just four essential ingredients: Choose a career you love, give it the best there is in you, seize your opportunities, and be a member of the team." (Benjamin F. Fairless)

"Real love is a pilgrimage. It happens when there is no strategy, but it is very rare because most people are strategists." (Anita Brookner)

"The experience gathered from books, though often valuable, is but the nature of learning; whereas the experience gained from actual life is one of the nature of wisdom." (Samuel Smiles)

"One of the greatest pieces of economic wisdom is to know what you do not know." (John Kenneth Galbraith)

"Wisdom and understanding can only become the possession of individual men by travelling the old road of observation, attention, perseverance, and industry." (Samuel Smiles)

"The beginning of wisdom is to desire it." (Solomon ibn Gabirol)

"They would need to be already wise, in order to love wisdom." (Friedrich von Schiller)

Week 2016-44

"Knowledge is real knowledge only when it is acquired by the efforts of your intellect, not by memory." (Henry David Thoreau)

"Wise people are foolish if they cannot adapt to foolish people." (Michel de Montaigne)

"The tigers of wrath are wiser than the horses of instruction." (William Blake)

"Everything you'll ever need to know is within you; the secrets of the universe are imprinted on the cells of your body. But you haven't learned how to read the wisdom of the body." (Dan Millman)

"The price of wisdom is eternal thought." (Frank Birch)

"That which seems the height of absurdity in one generation often becomes the height of wisdom in the next." (John Stuart Mill)

"There is no wisdom save in truth. Truth is everlasting, but our ideas about truth are changeable. Only a little of the first fruits of wisdom, only a few fragments of the boundless heights, breadths and depths of truth, have I been able to gather." (Martin Luther)

"Action should culminate in wisdom." (Bhagavad Gita)

"Loong, preserve yourself by following the natural bend of things and don’t interfere. Remember to never assert yourself against nature; never be in frontal opposition to any problems, but control it by swinging with it." (Yip Man [according to Bruce Lee])

"Silence is the sleep that nourishes wisdom." (Francis Bacon)