M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled:
“Life is difficult.
This is a great truth, one of the greatest truths. It is a great truth because once we truly see this truth, we transcend it. Once we truly know that life is difficult - once we truly understand and accept it - then life is no longer [...]
Vartan Gregorian, former President of Brown University:
“Nobody goes through life without encountering obstacles, disappointments, and problems. Nobody can keep from making mistakes or taking a wrong turn. Nobody can escape illness or avoid the specter of failure. Let me point out that coping with success is easy. How you deal with adversity, with failure, and [...]
Arnold J. Toynbee, world historian and author of A Study of History, the longest written work in the English language:
“Apathy can be overcome by enthusiasm, and enthusiasm can only be aroused by two things: first, an ideal, which takes the imagination by storm, and second, a definite intelligible plan for carrying that ideal into practice.”
Hat [...]
William Henry Channing, American writer and philosopher:
“To live content with small means; to seek elegance rather than luxury, and refinement rather than fashion; to be worthy, not respectable, and wealthy, not rich; to listen to stars and birds, babes and sages, with open heart; to study hard, think quietly, act frankly, talk gently, await occasions, [...]
Douglas Pagels, writer:
“There are some things that you wouldn’t improve upon, even if you could. Things that can’t be improved on, because they are just about as exquisite as anything gets. Things that appeal to our senses and sensibilities - like a perfect moment, a piece of music, a look, a creation - [...]
Étienne Pivert de Senancour, French writer:
“Man is perishable. That may be; but let us perish resisting, and, if nothingness is what awaits us, let us not act in such a way that it would be a just fate.”
James March, versatile Stanford business professor and polymath:
“In the end, you know, we are very minor blips in [...]
Ralph Waldo Emerson, American writer and philosopher:
“Beware when the great God lets loose a thinker on this planet.”
G. H. Hardy, mathematician:
“It is not worth an intelligent man’s time to be in the majority. By definition, there are already enough people to do that.”
Terry Pratchett, fantasy author:
“I’ll be more enthusiastic about encouraging thinking outside the box [...]
Robert A. Heinlein, Hugo award-winning science fiction writier and author of Starship Troopers and Stranger in a Strange Land:
“A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take [...]
Albert Einstein:
“If we knew what we were doing, it wouldn’t be called research!”
Donald Rumsfeld, former US Secretary of Defense:
“There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns. These are [...]
Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple, in a graduation address at Stanford in 2005:
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 [...]