LucD > LucD's Quotes

“To play a wrong note is insignificant; to play without passion is inexcusable.”
― Ludwig van Beethoven

“Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.”
― Seneca

“No man has the right to be an amateur in the matter of physical training. It is a shame for a man to grow old without seeing the beauty and strength of which his body is capable.”
― Socrates

“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”
― C.G. Jung

“There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.”
― Ernest Hemingway

“Sow a thought and you reap an action; sow an act and you reap a habit; sow a habit and you reap a character; sow a character and you reap a destiny.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.”
― Confucius

“By doubting we come to enquiry, and through enquiry we perceive truth.”
― Peter Abelard

“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”
― George Orwell, 1984

“Do not compare, do not measure. No other way is like yours. All other ways deceive and tempt you. You must fulfill the way that is in you.”
― Carl Jung

“To go wrong in one's own way is better than to go right in someone else's.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment

“Live as if you were living already for the second time and as if you had acted the first time as wrongly as you are about to act now!" It seems to me that there is nothing which would stimulate a man's sense of responsibleness more than this maxim, which invites him to imagine first that the present is past and, second, that the past may yet be changed and amended.”
― Viktor Frankl

“Concentrate every minute like a Roman— like a man— on doing what’s in front of you with precise and genuine seriousness, tenderly, willingly, with justice. And on freeing yourself from all other distractions. Yes, you can— if you do everything as if it were the last thing you were doing in your life, and stop being aimless, stop letting your emotions override what your mind tells you, stop being hypocritical, self-centered , irritable. You see how few things you have to do to live a satisfying and reverent life? If you can manage this, that’s all even the gods can ask of you.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“Pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart. The really great men must, I think, have great sadness on earth.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment

“All men die, but that not all men die whining”
― Marcus Aurelius

“3. Everything that happens is either endurable or not. If it’s endurable, then endure it. Stop complaining. If it’s unendurable … then stop complaining. Your destruction will mean its end as well. Just remember: you can endure anything your mind can make endurable, by treating it as in your interest to do so. In your interest, or in your nature. 4.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“Nothing in this world is harder than speaking the truth, nothing easier than flattery.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky

“Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration.”
― Thomas A. Edison

“Yes, keep on degrading yourself, soul. But soon your chance at dignity will be gone. Everyone gets one life. Yours is almost used up, and instead of treating yourself with respect, you have entrusted your own happiness to the souls of others.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“In comparing sins (the way people do) Theophrastus says
that the ones committed out of desire are worse than the ones
committed out of anger: which is good philosophy. The angry
man seems to turn his back on reason out of a kind of pain
and inner convulsion. But the man motivated by desire, who
is mastered by pleasure, seems somehow more self-
indulgent, less manly in his sins. Theophrastus is right, and
philosophically sound, to say that the sin committed out of
pleasure deserves a harsher rebuke than the one committed
out of pain. The angry man is more like a victim of
wrongdoing, provoked by pain to anger. The other man
rushes into wrongdoing on his own, moved to action by
desire.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“Not just that every day more of our life is used up and less
and less of it is left, but this too: if we live longer, can we be
sure our mind will still be up to understanding the world—to
the contemplation that aims at divine and human knowledge?
If our mind starts to wander, we’ll still go on breathing, go
on eating, imagining things, feeling urges and so on. But
getting the most out of ourselves, calculating where our duty
lies, analyzing what we hear and see, deciding whether it’s
time to call it quits—all the things you need a healthy mind
for . . . all those are gone.
So we need to hurry.
Not just because we move daily closer to death but also
because our understanding—our grasp of the world—may be
gone before we get there.”
― Marcus Aurelius

“Body. Soul. Mind. Sensations: the body. Desires: the soul. Reasoning: the mind. To experience sensations: even grazing beasts do that. To let your desires control you: even wild animals do that—and rutting humans, and tyrants (from Phalaris to Nero . . .). To make your mind your guide to what seems best: even people who deny the gods do that. Even people who betray their country. Even people who do <. . .> behind closed doors. If all the rest is common coin, then what is unique to the good man? To welcome with affection what is sent by fate. Not to stain or disturb the spirit within him with a mess of false beliefs. Instead, to preserve it faithfully, by calmly obeying God—saying nothing untrue, doing nothing unjust. And if the others don’t acknowledge it—this life lived with simplicity, humility, cheerfulness—he doesn’t resent them for it, and isn’t deterred from following the road where it leads: to the end of life. An end to be approached in purity, in serenity, in acceptance, in peaceful unity with what must be.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“It can ruin your life only if it ruins your character. Otherwise it cannot harm you—inside or out.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“Two kinds of readiness are constantly needed: (i) to do only what the logos of authority and law directs, with the good of human beings in mind; (ii) to reconsider your position, when someone can set you straight or convert you to his. But your conversion should always rest on a conviction that it’s right, or benefits others—nothing else. Not because it’s more appealing or more popular.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“Beautiful things of any kind are beautiful in themselves and sufficient to themselves. Praise is extraneous. The object of praise remains what it was—no better and no worse. This applies, I think, even to “beautiful” things in ordinary life—physical objects, artworks. Does anything genuinely beautiful need supplementing? No more than justice does—or truth, or kindness, or humility. Are any of those improved by being praised? Or damaged by contempt? Is an emerald suddenly flawed if no one admires it? Or gold, or ivory, or purple? Lyres? Knives? Flowers? Bushes?”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“If you seek tranquillity, do less.” Or (more accurately) do what’s essential—what the logos of a social being requires, and in the requisite way. Which brings a double satisfaction: to do less, better. Because most of what we say and do is not essential. If you can eliminate it, you’ll have more time, and more tranquillity. Ask yourself at every moment, “Is this necessary?” But we need to eliminate unnecessary assumptions as well. To eliminate the unnecessary actions that follow.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“What lies in our power to do, lies in our power not to do.”
― Aristole

“The best way to have a good idea is to have a lot of ideas.”
― Dr. Linus Pauling

“Si vis pacem, para bellum”
― Plato, The Laws of Plato