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Vincent Van Gogh: I must still have hope
“Many people seem to think it foolish, even superstitious, to believe that the world could still change for the better. And it is true that in winter it is sometimes so bitingly cold that one is tempted to say, ‘What do I care if there is a summer; its warmth is no help to me…
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Bill Bullard: Opinion
“Opinion is really the lowest form of human knowledge. It requires no accountability, no understanding. The highest form of knowledge… is empathy, for it requires us to suspend our egos and live in another’s world. It requires profound purpose larger than the self kind of understanding.” —Bill Bullard.
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Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: Judging
“We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, while others judge us by what we have already done.” —Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
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Margaret Mead: Someone to wonder where you are
“One of the oldest human needs is having someone to wonder where you are when you don’t come home at night.” —Margaret Mead.
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Joyce Wheeler: Leave alone and pause
“Sometimes it’s better to leave something alone, to pause, and that’s very true of programming.” ––Joyce Wheeler.
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Muriel Rukeyser: Made of stories
“The universe is made of stories, not of atoms.” —Muriel Rukeyser.
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Ellen Jane Willis: Arbitrary
‘In its original literal sense, “moral relativism” is simply moral complexity. That is, anyone who agrees that stealing a loaf of bread to feed one’s children is not the moral equivalent of, say, shoplifting a dress for the fun of it, is a relativist of sorts. But in recent years, conservatives bent on reinstating an…
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Ross Macdonald: Walls of books
“The walls of books around me, dense with the past, formed a kind of insulation against the present world and its disasters.” —Ross Macdonald.
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Gustave Flaubert: Violent and original work
“Be regular and orderly in your life so that you may be violent and original in your work.” —-Gustave Flaubert.
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Rafe Sagarin: Organisms in nature
“Organisms in nature have survived and thrived for three and a half billion years, and they’ve done it without any kind of planning or predicting, or anything that we spend so much of our time doing.” — Rafe Sagarin.
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George Herbert: Lean compromise
“A lean compromise is better than a fat lawsuit.” –– George Herbert.
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Louis Kronenberger: Modest vanity
“Nothing so soothes our vanity as a display of greater vanity in others; it makes us vain, in fact, of our modesty.” —Louis Kronenberger.
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Mario Fusco: Old programs
“Programs, like people, get old. We can’t prevent ageing, but we can understand its causes, limit its effects and reverse some of the damage.” —Mario Fusco.
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James Thurber: Two kinds of light
“There are two kinds of light — the glow that illuminates, and the glare that obscures.” —James Thurber.
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Willa Cather: Happiness
“That is happiness; to be dissolved into something complete and great.” —Willa Cather.
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Alan Rosenberg: Leverage
“Fair play doesn’t pertain in bargaining. What matters there is leverage.” —Alan Rosenberg.
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Leo Tolstoy: All else is folly
“Seize the moments of happiness, love and be loved! That is the only reality in the world, all else is folly.” —Leo Tolstoy.
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Kahlil Gibran: Said a blade of grass
‘Said a blade of grass to an autumn leaf: “You make such a noise falling! You scatter all my winter dreams.” Said the leaf indignant: “Lowborn and low-dwelling! Song-less, peevish thing! You live not in the upper air and you cannot tell the sound of singing.” Then the autumn leaf lay down upon the earth…
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Christina Rosssetti: Work never begun
“Can anything be sadder than work left unfinished? Yes, work never begun.” —Christina Rossetti.
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Rumi: Expansive love
“When your love contracts in anger, the atmosphere itself feels threatening. But when you’re expansive, no matter what the weather, you’re in an open, windy field with friends.” —Rumi.
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Rumi: Polished
“If you are irritated by every rub, how will you be polished?” —Rumi.
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Rumi: Two kinds of intelligence
“There are two kinds of intelligence: one acquired, as a child in school memorizes facts and concepts from books and from what the teacher says, collecting information from the traditional sciences as well as from the new sciences. With such intelligence you rise in the world. You get ranked ahead or behind others in regard…
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Rumi: Let the lover be
“Let the lover be disgraceful, crazy, absentminded. Someone sober will worry about things going badly. Let the lover be.” —Rumi.
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Rumi: Poetry can be dangerous
“Poetry can be dangerous, especially beautiful poetry, because it gives the illusion of having had the experience without actually going through it.” ― Rumi.
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Rumi: Love comes with a knife
“Love comes with a knife, not some shy question, and not with fears for its reputation!” ― Rumi.
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Rumi: Looking for food
“The lion is most handsome when looking for food.” ― Rumi.
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Thomas Carlyle: Accomplish something
“The weakest living creature, by concentrating his powers on a single object, can accomplish something. The strongest, by dispensing his over many, may fail to accomplish anything. The drop, by continually falling, bores its passage through the hardest rock. The hasty torrent rushes over it with hideous uproar, and leaves no trace behind.” —Thomas Carlyle.
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Ann Patchett: Disturb the world around you
“The question is whether or not you choose to disturb the world around you, or if you choose to let it go on as if you had never arrived.” —Ann Patchett.
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Roedy Green: Longer, harder
The longer it takes for a bug to surface, the harder it is to find.” —Roedy Green.
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Rumi: Look at the giver
“When someone is counting out gold for you, don’t look at your hands, or the gold. Look at the giver.” ― Rumi.
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Rumi: Relationship booster
“Here is a relationship booster that is guaranteed to work: Every time your spouse or lover says something stupid make your eyes light up as if you just heard something brilliant.” ― Rumi.
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Sarah Silverman: Taboo
“I like talking about things that are taboo because it makes them not taboo anymore.” -Sarah Silverman.
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Rumi: Sorrow
“Sorrow prepares you for joy. It violently sweeps everything out of your house, so that new joy can find space to enter. It shakes the yellow leaves from the bough of your heart, so that fresh, green leaves can grow in their place. It pulls up the rotten roots, so that new roots hidden beneath…
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Rumi: Words are a pretext
“Words are a pretext. It is the inner bond that draws one person to another, not words.” ― Rumi.
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Rumi: Be notorious
“Forget safety. Live where you fear to live. Destroy your reputation. Be notorious.” ― Rumi.
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Rumi: What you seek
“What you seek is seeking you.” ― Rumi.
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Rumi: Seek for love
“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.” ― Rumi.
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Jonathan Swift: Never reasoned into
“It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into.” -Jonathan Swift.
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Rumi: Denier
“Trust me: I won’t be this same believer in the next moment. It is very boring to believe without doubt. Faith is not born from assurance but it emerges out of denial. I love this daring denier – who lives inside me – who turns me into a better believer every day.” —Rumi.
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Rumi: Conflict
“This ‘me’ does not believe in me and I keep telling him: “Now that you don’t trust me, please set me free, leave me alone, please!” and he always answers: ” I will not, I will stay here and I will always deny your existence.” Are you watching this? He is ‘me’, and even he…
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Rumi: Joy
“I have no acquaintance with sorrow. Sorrow is rooted in existence and I do not exist. I am full of joy.” —Rumi.
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Peter Lynch: No shame
“There’s no shame in losing money on a stock. Everybody does it. What is shameful is to hold on to a stock, or worse, to buy more of it when the fundamentals are deteriorating.” —Peter Lynch.
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Naval Ravikant: Value yourself
“No one is going to value you more than you value yourself. You just have to set a very high personal hourly rate and you have to stick to it. Even when I was young, I just decided I was worth a lot more than the market thought I was worth, and I started treating…
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Shams Tabrizi: Easy
“Don’t bother fighting too hard! No matter how tough you swim, no matter how strong you are, this savage sea of life will break you down in pieces if she feels you intend to defeat her. Just take it easy, loosen up yourself in her skirt, or even play dead. Then, she will kindly carry…
