Quote of the Day - Standing on the Shoulders of Giants
““Discipline” is a difficult word for most of us. It conjures up images of somebody standing over you with a stick, telling you that you’re wrong. But self-discipline is different. It’s the skill of seeing through the hollow shouting of your own impulses and piercing their secret. They have no power over you. It’s all a show, a deception. Your urges scream and bluster at you; they cajole; they coax; they threaten; but they really carry no stick at all. You give in out of habit. You give in because you never really bother to look beyond the threat. It is all empty back there. There is only one way to learn this lesson, though. The words on this page won’t do it.
But look within and watch the stuff coming up - restlessness, anxiety, impatience, pain - just watch it come up and don’t get involved. Much to your surprise, it will simply go away. It rises, it passes away. As simple as that. There is another word for self-discipline. It is patience.
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“You don’t need another human being to make your life complete but lets be honest. Having your wounds kissed by someone who doesn’t see them as disasters in your soul, but as cracks to put their love into is the most calming thing in this world.”
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. It’s not just in some of us, it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
“Pain, when pushed and endured long enough, brings to the surface the uninhibited, raw soul of a human being. Only then are we healed from suffering because we’ve experienced it in full.”
“Try to exclude the possibility of suffering which the order of nature and the existence of free-wills involve, and you find that you have excluded life itself.”
“There are two kinds of people in this world: Those who embrace their insanity and allow it to develop into genius and those who reject their insanity for normalcy.”
“When we fear things I think that we wish for them…Every fear hides a wish.”
“Be as careful of the books you read, as of the company you keep; for your habits and character will be as much influenced by the former as by the latter.”
“So avoid using the word ‘very’ because it’s lazy. A man is not very tired, he is exhausted. Don’t use very sad, use morose. Language was invented for one reason, boys - to woo women - and, in that endeavor, laziness will not do.”
“There can be no such thing, in law or in morality, as actions forbidden to an individual, but permitted to a mob.”
“The path isn’t a straight line; it’s a spiral. You continually come back to things you thought you understood and see deeper truths.”
“Understand that everything is neutral, that nothing has meaning except for the meaning we give it.”
“The top players in every field think differently when all the marbles are on the line. Great performers focus on what they are doing, and nothing else…They let it happen, let it go. They couldn’t care less about the results.”
“When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.”
“What vulnerabilities do we have and what can we do to minimize them, to get around them, to survive them - and to give ourselves a better chance to win..”
“In mastering performance, we master ourselves and, in so doing, become more that who we are. What greater calling can there be?”
“Even the best fishermen will come home empty handed if they dip their lines into unstocked ponds.”
“The reason so many struggle with insecurity, is because they compare their “behind the scenes” with everyone else’s highlight reel.”