“Sadly it is not only the force of gravity we get used to as we grow up. The world itself becomes a habit in no time at all. It seems as if in the process of growing up we lose the ability to wonder about the world. And in doing so, we lose something central—something…
“If you get stuck, get away from your desk. Take a walk, take a bath, go to sleep, make a pie, draw, listen to music, meditate, exercise; whatever you do, don’t just stick there scowling at the problem. But don’t make telephone calls or go to a party; if you do, other people’s words will…
Death twitches my ear.“Live’” He says, “I am coming.“— Virgil The twitch is there, reminding me to make the most of each day. You may have noticed a lean towards Stoicism early on in this blog. Stoicism celebrates every moment of life, because we remind ourselves that infinity is calling. So decide what to be…
“You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait. Do not even wait, be quite still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet.” — Franz…
“Our life is also what we have not dared to do … what escaped us.” — Javier Marias Javier Marias passed away on September 11th, triggering a series of tributes to a productive literary life. This quote stood out for me, for all the reasons you might expect from this particular blogger. If there’s a…
“Habit is a rope. We weave a thread every day, and eventually we can’t break it.” — Thomas Mann “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” — Aristotle This business of repeatedly doing is leading somewhere, with our destination highly dependent on what we repeatedly do. Such…
“There is nothing quite so useless, as doing with great efficiency, something that should not be done at all.” — Peter Drucker “You seem to spend a lot of time worrying if you will survive, and you will probably survive…. It’s the wrong question! The question is how to be useful.” — Peter Drucker to…
“You are everything that the rest of the universe is not.” — Ogawa (via @bashosociety) Is it the ego speaking when you reflect on Ogawa’s words? The universe can feel overwhelmingly vast, and we are but bit players in the big scheme of things. Who are we to brashly believe we have a significant stake…
“Days to come stand in front of uslike a row of lighted candles—golden, warm, and vivid candles.Days gone by fall behind us,a gloomy line of snuffed-out candles;the nearest are smoking still,cold, melted, and bent.”— C. P. Cavafy When you think about it, our days gone by are a stack of previous lives, somewhat resembling us…
“Every instant of our lives is essentially irreplaceable: you must know this in order to concentrate on life.” — André Gide Here we go again: another week beginning. Much like last week and the week before, yet we’ve changed. We’ve layered on our moments of insight and irreplaceable instants that root us in identity and…
