Ralph Steadman May 15, 1936 -) Stuff your eyes with wonder... live as if you'd drop dead in ten seconds. See the world. It's more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories.
George Leonard On Mastery
George Leonard (August 09, 1923 - January 06, 2010) It resists definition yet can be instantly recognized. It comes in many varieties, yet follows certain unchanging laws. It brings rich rewards, yet is not really a goal or a destination but rather a process, a journey. We call this journey mastery, and tend to assume …
Rollo May On Solitude
Rollo Reese May (April 21, 1909 – October 22, 1994) In order to be open to creativity, one must have the capacity for constructive use of solitude. One must overcome the fear of being alone.
Charles M Blow On Is Trump a Rapist?
Charles McRay Blow (August 11, 1970 -) This president (Donald Trump) acts as if he is above the law, or is the law. He lies and he cheats and he bullies. He is hateful and rude and racist. He talks about women to whom he is attracted as if they’re objects to be possessed and …
Carl Jung On Myth
Carl G Jung (July 26, 1875 – June 06, 1961) What we are to our inward vision, and what man appears to be sub specie aeternitatis, can only be expressed by way of myth. Myth is more individual and expresses life more precisely than does science...The only question is whether what I tell is my fable, …
David Miliband On Lies
David Miliband (July 15, 1965 -) Constraints on the abuse of power are being weakened internationally and nationally. This cannot continue. Those who can must speak out plainly – and truthfully – or be complicit in a world of lies.
Tim Kreider On Mortality
Tim Kreider (February 25, 1967 -) The hope of being remembered by getting your name on a book or a cornerstone, a disease or a species, an equation or a star, is no less pitiful and silly than any other stratagem to outsmart mortality, from having children to invading nations. Per Woody Allen: “I don’t …
Alice Koller On Solitude
Alice Koller Being solitary is being alone well: being alone luxuriously immersed in doings of your own choice, aware of the fullness of your won presence rather than of the absence of others. Because solitude is an achievement.
Robert Graves On Flying Crooked
Robert von Ranke Graves (July 24, 1895 – December 07, 1985) The butterfly, the cabbage white, (His honest idiocy of flight) Will never now, it is too late, Master the art of flying straight, Yet has — who knows so well as I? — A just sense of how not to fly: He lurches here …
Marie Corelli On Life’s Greatest Transition
Marie Corelli (May 01, 1855 – April 21, 1924) You are going to see wonderful things that no tongue or pen can adequately describe. Well, when you return to earth again, do you suppose you can make people believe the story of your experiences? Never! Be thankful if you are the possessor of a secret joy …
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César Abraham Vallejo Mendoza On Life
César Abraham Vallejo Mendoza (March 16, 1892 – April 15, 1938) I have the desire to work and to live my life with dignity. I am not a bohemian: poverty is very painful, and it’s no part for me, unlike for others. … My will veers between the point at which one is reduced to …
John Updike On Speaking And Writing
John Hoyer Updike (March 18, 1932 – January 27, 2009) My father thought that I had too many words to get out all at once. So, I didn’t speak very pleasingly, but I never stopped speaking or trying to communicate this way, and I think the stuttering has gotten better over the years. I have …
Rainer Maria Rilke On Transformation
Rainer Maria Rilke (December 04, 1875 – December 29, 1926) Self-transformation is precisely what life is, and human relationships, which are an extract of life, are the most changeable of all, rising and falling from minute to minute, and lovers are those in whose relationship and contact no one moment resembles another.
Margaret Fuller On Mankind
Margaret Fuller (May 23, 1810–July 19, 1850) This country needs… no thin Idealist, no coarse Realist, but a man whose eye reads the heavens, while his feet step firmly on the ground, and his hands are strong and dexterous for the use of human implements… a man of universal sympathies, but self-possessed; a man who …
Mark Strand On Being A Witness
Mark Strand (April 11, 1934–November 29, 2014) We’re only here for a short while. And I think it’s such a lucky accident, having been born, that we’re almost obliged to pay attention. In some ways, this is getting far afield. I mean, we are – as far as we know – the only part of …
Margery Williams On What Is Real
Margery Williams (July 22, 1881 – September 4, 1944) "What is 'Real?" asks the rabbit. "Real isn't how you're made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you." “Does it hurt?” asks the rabbit. “Sometimes,” answered the Skin Horse. “Generally by the time you are ‘Real,’ most of your hair has been …
Esther Sternberg On Connections
Esther Sternberg A very young child will carry a physical reminder of mother’s embrace: a security blanket, a favorite toy, something soaked with all the smells of home and love… The engagement ring and wedding band have the power in an ounce of gold to evoke the memory of the beloved… We are all tethered …
Louise Gluck On Walking At Night
Louise Gluck (April 22, 1943 -) Now that she is old, the young men don't approach her so the nights are free, the streets at dusk that were so dangerous have become as safe as the meadow. By midnight, the town's quiet. Moonlight reflects off the stone walls; on the pavement, you can hear the …
Steve Jobs On Death
Steve Jobs (February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011) Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face …
Theresa May On Government
Theresa May (October 01, 1956 -) The government I lead will be driven, not by the interests of the privileged few, but by yours (common folk). We will do everything we can to give you more control over your lives.
Saul Bellows On Manifesto for Life
Saul Bellow (June 10, 1915 – April 05, 2005) The quest is one and the same...We are drawn toward the same craters of the spirit — to know what we are, and what we are for, to know our purpose….
Tao Writer On Moments
Tao Writer (April 17, 1948 -) If I could master just one art, it would be the art of letting go: of people I have known and loved, of places I’ve traveled to and lived of sunsets and full moons I’ve witnessed. I would let go of this moment as quickly as it appears, faster if …
Seneca On Living
Seneca (c. 4 BC – AD 65) You are living as if destined to live for ever; your own frailty never occurs to you; you don’t notice how much time has already passed, but squander it as though you had a full and overflowing supply – though all the while that very day which you are …
Sam Harris On Happiness
Sam Harris (April 09, 1967 -) Even in the best of circumstances, happiness is elusive. We seek pleasant sights, sounds, tastes, sensations, and moods. We satisfy our intellectual curiosity. We surround ourselves with friends and loved ones. We become connoisseurs of art, music, or food. But our pleasures are, by their very nature, fleeting. If …
Basarab Nicolescu On Life
Basarab Nicolescu (March 25, 1942 -) What keeps me alive is found between the images, between the words, between thought, the emptiness of feeling, and in the emptiness of the body...there arises the fullness and significance of life.
Pearl Buck On Creativity
Pearl S. Buck (June 26, 1892 – March 6, 1973) The creative instinct is ... an enormous extra vitality, a super-energy, born inexplicably in an individual ... an energy which no single life can consume.
Khaled Hosseini On Writing
Khaled Hosseini (March 04, 1965 -) There is a romantic notion to writing a novel, especially when you are starting it. You are embarking on this incredibly exciting journey, and you're going to write your first novel, you're going to write a book. Until you're about 50 pages into it, and that romance wears off, …
Thomas Stoppard On Living
Thomas Stoppard (July 03, 1937 -) The Renaissance teaches us that the book of knowledge is not to be learned by rote but is to be written anew in the ecstasy of living each moment for the moment’s sake. Success in life is to maintain this ecstasy, to burn always with this hard gemlike flame. …
Maria Popova On The Golden Age
Maria Popova (July 28, 1984 -) ...that this is the golden age within a lifetime, (mid-twenties to late thirties) when we have transcended the know-it-all arrogance of youth, haven’t yet entered the know-it-all complacency of old age, and live with that wondrous combination of receptivity to new ideas and just enough not-yet-calcified intellectual foundation with …
Abraham Lincoln On Truth
Abraham Lincoln (February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts… No man has a good enough memory to be a successful liar.
