- Guy de Maupassant, Pierre et Jean."The great artists are those who impose their personal vision upon humanity."
Category: Books
- F. Scott Fitzgerald, A Side of Paradise.“I'm not sentimental--I'm as romantic as you are. The idea, you know, is that the sentimental person thinks things will last--the romantic person has a desperate confidence that they won't.”
— Fred Rogers, Life's Journeys According to Mister Rogers: Things to Remember Along the Way."I believe that at the center of the universe there dwells a loving spirit who longs for all that’s best in all of creation, a spirit who knows the great potential of each planet as well as each person, and little by little will love us into being more than we ever dreamed possible. That loving spirit would rather die than give up on any one of us."
— Susan Cain (Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking)"Don't think of introversion as something that needs to be cured."
- Eleanor Roosevelt, We Learn By Living."One's philosophy is not best expressed in words; it is expressed in the choices one makes. In stopping to think through the meaning of what I have learned, there is much I believe intensely, much I am unsure of. But this, at least, I believe with all my heart: In the long run, we shape our lives and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. And the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility."
“Part of you died each year when the leaves fell from the trees…
“You expected to be sad in the fall. Part of you died each year when the leaves fell from the trees and their branches were bare against the wind and the cold, wintery light. But […]
- Viktor Frankl, The Feeling of Meaninglessness."It is the very problem of our time that people are caught by a pervasive feeling of meaninglessness, which is the most conspicuous symptom of the collective neurosis of our time. It is accompanied by a feeling of emptiness. The "existential vacuum" has increased and spread literally all over the world. Our industrialised society is out to satisfy all needs, and our consumer society is even out to create needs in order to satisfy them; but the most human of all human needs - the need to see a meaning in one's life - remains unsatisfied. People may have enough to live by; but more often than not they do not have anything to live for."
Hermann Hesse on Trees
“For me, trees have always been the most penetrating preachers. I revere them when they live in tribes and families, in forests and groves. And even more I revere them when they stand alone. They […]
- Viktor Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning.“It did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life—daily and hourly. Our answer must consist, not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual.”
- Viktor Frankl, Man's Search For Meaning.“Don't aim at success. The more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side effect of one's personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one's surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it. I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. Then you will live to see that in the long-run—in the long-run, I say!—success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think about it”
