Surpass Myself

Finally I am coming to the conclusion that my highest ambition is to be what I already am. That I will never fulfill my obligation to surpass myself unless I first accept myself, and if I accept myself fully in the right way, I will already have surpassed myself.
--Thomas Merton

Essential Condition

The essential condition of youth is to be mind-visionary: to see everything as though it might have a mind.
--Adam Gopnick

The Greatest Mistake

The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you
will make one.
--Elbert Hubbard

No Fixed Plans

A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent upon arriving.
--Lao Tzu

Deliberate

Silence requires not simply failing to notice something, it's a deliberate effort to refrain from noticing it.
--Eviatar Zerubavel

Denial

The most dangerous thing in any economic crisis is denial.
--Simon Johnson

Quite Insane

Those who danced were thought to be quite insane by those who could not hear the music.
--Angela Monet

So Welcome

If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant: if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome.
--Anne Bradstreet

Real Good

Imaginary evil is romantic and varied; real evil is gloomy, monotonous, barren, boring. Imaginary good is boring; real good is always new, marvelous, intoxicating.
--Simone Weil

Barely Sketch

What goes on inside is just too fast and huge and all interconnected for words to do more than barely sketch the outlines of at most one tiny little part of it at any given instant.
--David Foster Wallace

The Evolution

The evolution of man is the evolution of his consciousness, and "consciousness" cannot evolve unconsciously. The evolution of man is the evolution of his will, and "will" cannot evolve involuntarily. The evolution of man is the evolution of his power of doing, and "doing" cannot be the result of things which "happen."
--G. I. Gurdjieff

As If

Act as if the future of the universe depends on what you do, while laughing at yourself for thinking that your actions make any difference.
--Buddhist saying

The Egg

Change is the constant, the signal for rebirth, the egg of the phoenix.
--Christina Baldwin

Desire Changes

We do not succeed in changing things according to our desire, but gradually our desire changes.
--Marcel Proust

Clearly

We did not change as we grew older; we just became more clearly ourselves.
--Lynn Hall

Fill Forms

We fill pre-existing forms and when we fill them we change them and are changed.
--Frank Bidart

Often

To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.
--Winston Churchill

Actor Actress

An actor is something less than a man, while an actress is something more than a woman.
--Richard Burton

Learn How

To philosophize is to learn how to die.
--Cicero

To Be Tough

Human kindness has never weakened the stamina or softened the fiber of a free people. A nation does not have to be cruel to be tough.
--Franklin Delano Roosevelt

The Word

Money is the word of the Devil.
--Martin Luther

Inhabit Time

Humans are amphibians--half spirit and half animal. As spirits they belong to the eternal world, but as animals they inhabit time.
--C. S. Lewis