Change

Adapt, cope, remain flexible and foster a positive attitude amidst life's ups and downs.

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

more quotes

miscellaneous quotes:

The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing.

"All blame is a waste of time. No matter how
much fault you find with another, and
regardless of how much you blame
him, it will not change you"
- Wayne Dyer


"Strength does not come from winning.Your
struggles develop your strength. When
you go through hardship and decide
not to surrender, that is strength."
- Arnold Schwarzenegger



"The young do not know enough to
be prudent, and therefore they attempt
the impossible -- and achieve it,
generation after generation."
- Pearl S. Buck



When you allow whatever arises to come into your mind, you see that all of it is impermanent. In that seeing, there is a letting go, and past the letting go is silence. A silent mind allows you to see impermanence even more clearly, which leads to more letting go, and in turn deeper penetration into silence. These two things feed each other, what I'm calling wisdom and what I'm calling silence. Each deepens the other.

It is true that on the threshold of silence we often experience fear. It is the ego that is afraid. In the panoramic attention required for choice-less awareness, the ego is not allowed to occupy center stage, where it thinks it belongs, and it begins to wonder what life will be like in silence, where it won't be present at all. This fear resembles the fear of death, because entering into silence is a temporary death for the ego. Naturally, it is afraid.

When this fear comes up, you shouldn't regard it as an obstacle or hindrance; it is just one more aspect of the noise. Your encounter with this fear is very valuable, and the skill called for is just to stay with it. In time, like every other phenomenon, it will pass away. When it does, all that will be left is silence.

—Larry Rosenberg, Breath by Breath by Larry Rosenberg & David Guy



"You must take personal responsibility.
You cannot change the circumstances,
the seasons, or the wind, but
you can change yourself"
- Jim Rohn



"Whatever you can do, or dream you can
begin it. Boldness has genius,
power and magic in it."
- Goethe

Man is a clever animal who behaves like an imbecile.
- Albert Schweitzer


"He, who every morning plans the
Transactions of the day, and follows that plan
Carries a thread that will guide him through
A labyrinth of the most busy life."
- Victor Hugo r




"Achievement seems to be connected
With action. Successful men and
Women keep moving. They make
Mistakes, but they don't quit."
- Conrad Hilton

The most important human endeavor is the striving for morality in our actions. Our inner balance and even our very existence depend on it. Only morality in our actions can give beauty and dignity



"Success seems to be largely a matter of
hanging on after others have let go."

The firm, the enduring, the simple, and the modest are near to virtue.

The firm, the enduring, the simple, and the modest are near to virtue.
He crushed his troops’ cooking pots and burned their ships.

He explained this was to focus them on moving forward — a motivational speech that was not appreciated by many of the soldiers watching their retreat option go up in flames. But General Xiang Yu would be vindicated, both on the battlefield and in the annals of social science research.

He is one of the role models in Dan Ariely’s new book, “Predictably Irrational,” an entertaining look at human foibles like the penchant for keeping too many options open. General Xiang Yu was a rare exception to the norm, a warrior who conquered by being unpredictably rational.

Most people can’t make such a painful choice, not even the students at a bastion
The experiments involved a game that eliminated the excuses we usually have for refusing to let go. In the real world, we can always tell ourselves that it’s good to keep options open.

You don’t even know how a camera’s burst-mode flash works, but you persuade yourself
motivations by introducing yet another twist. This time, even if a door vanished from the screen, players could make it reappear whenever they wanted. But even when they knew it would not cost anything to make the door reappear, they still kept frantically trying to prevent doors from vanishing.

Apparently they did not care so much about maintaining flexibility in the future. What really motivated them was the desire to avoid the immediate pain of watching a door close.

“Closing a door on an option is experienced as a loss, and people are willing to pay a price to avoid the emotion of loss,” Dr. Ariely says. In the experiment, the price was easy to measure in lost cash. In life, the costs are less obvious — wasted time, missed opportunities. If you are afraid to drop any project at the office, you pay for it at home.

"Keeping Doors Open: The Effect of Unavailability on Incentives to Keep Options Viable." Jiwoong Shin, Dan Ariely. Management Science, May 2004. (PDF)
Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions." Dan Ariely. HarperCollins, 2008.
"Keeping Doors Open

f the general’s tactics seem too crude, Dr. Ariely recommends another role model, Rhett Butler, for his supreme moment of unpredictable rationality at the end of his marriage. Scarlett, like the rest of us, can’t bear the pain of giving up an option, but Rhett recognizes the marriage’s futility and closes the door with astonishing elan. Frankly, he doesn’t give a damn.

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