QUOTES ABOUT THE CRAFT OF WRITING

"Successful and unsuccessful people do
not vary greatly in their abilities.
They vary in their desires to
reach their potential."

-- John Maxwell






For a good writer, there is only one measure of success,
and that is found in his honoring the complexity and richness
of his subject while telling his story in a lucid way.

-- Joseph Epstein






The most important sentence in any article is the first one. If it doesn’t induce the reader to proceed to the second sentence, your article is dead. And if the second sentence doesn’t induce him to continue to the third sentence, it’s equally dead. Of such a progression of sentences, each tugging the reader forward until he is hooked, a writer constructs that fateful unit, the “lead.”

-–William Zinsser, On Writing Well, p. 55

EMBRACE CHANGE AND ALBERT SCHWIETZER'S VISION

EMBRACE CHANGE:

"If you cry because the sun has gone out of your life, your tears will prevent you from seeing the stars."

- R. Tagore 
Build a better life according to your ideal Vision.
Do not wait for perfect timing, get started now.
What you do today, is all that matters.
Do your best with what you have and start from where you are.


"Inspiration exists, but it has to find us working." - Picasso

There is power in action so make plans and execute them.

Circumstance is a result of your past and does not indicate where you are heading.

The greatest journey begins with the first step and so does your building of a new business or whatever you are setting out to create.

We all need to start where we are and in the moment, find the strength to overcome obstacles we encounter, persevere and endure until we achieve a few goals and gain momentum in a positive direction.

Live according to your Vision of the well-lived life.

"One who gains strength by overcoming obstacles possesses the only strength which can overcome adversity."
~Albert Schweitzer

Reverence for Life:

Lost in thought I sat on deck of the barge, struggling to find the elementary and universal concept of the ethical that I had not discovered in any philosophy. I covered sheet after sheet with disconnected sentences merely to concentrate on the problem. Two days passed. Late on the third day, at the very moment when, at sunset, we were making our way through a herd of hippopotamuses, there flashed upon my mind, unforeseen and unsought, the phrase : “Ehrfurcht vor dem Leben” (“reverence for life”). The iron door had yielded. The path in the thicket had become visible.”

— Albert Schweitzer

Vincent van Gogh

Vincent van Gogh: "I'd like to show by my work what such an eccentric, such a nobody, has in his heart"


How a genius feels: "I'm a nonentity, an eccentric, an unpleasant person"


March 30th is the birthday of Vincent van Gogh, born in Holland in 1853, a famous painter and also great letter-writer. His letters were lively, engaging, and passionate; they also frequently reflect his struggles with bipolar disorder.

He wrote: "What am I in the eyes of most people — a nonentity, an eccentric, or an unpleasant person — somebody who has no position in society and will never have; in short, the lowest of the low. All right, then — even if that were absolutely true, then I should one day like to show by my work what such an eccentric, such a nobody, has in his heart."

He wrote thousands of letters to his brother Theo over the course of his life. Theo's widow published the van Gogh's letters to her husband in 1913.

Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle.

Plato Greek author & philosopher in Athens (427 BC - 347 BC)  

Image source: Vincent van Gogh's 1890 painting At Eternity's Gate. Wikipedia, public domain.