“Every positive change in your life begins with a clear, unequivocal decision that you are going to either do something or stop doing something.”— Brian Tracy
Inspired by Leo Tolstoy's last major work: "A Calendar of Wisdom". "With it, he fulfilled a dream he had nourished for almost fifteen years, that of 'collecting the wisdom of the centuries in one book' meant for a general audience." This is my attempt to combine the wisdom of the centuries with the modern philosophies of literature today.
“Every positive change in your life begins with a clear, unequivocal decision that you are going to either do something or stop doing something.”— Brian Tracy
“Man is sometimes extraordinarily, passionately, in love with suffering.”
— Fyodor Dostoyevsky, from “Notes from the Underground”, published c. april 1864.
“The surest way to work up a crusade in favor of some good cause is to promise people they will have a chance of maltreating someone. To be able to destroy with good conscience, to be able to behave badly and call your bad behavior ‘righteous indignation’ — this is the height of psychological luxury, the most delicious of moral treats.”— Aldous Huxley, Crome Yellow
— Franz Kafka, Letters to Felice
“Like most sensitive souls, you already know you’re sensitive. You soak up others’ moods and desires like a sponge. You absorb sensation the way a paintbrush grasps each color it touches on a palette.”— Victoria Erickson
“Kindness is more than deeds. It is an attitude, an expression, a look, a touch. It is anything that lifts a person.“ Plato”—
do you still perform autopsies on conversations you’ve had long ago?
Autopsy: Thirteen Ways of Looking at Thirteen by Donte Collins
“All you can do in life is to be who you are. Some people will love you for you. Most will love you for what you can do for them, and some won’t like you at all.”— Rita Mae Brown
“The next suitable person you’re in light conversation with, you stop suddenly in the middle of the conversation and look at the person closely and say, “What’s wrong?” You say it in a concerned way. He’ll say, “What do you mean?” You say, “Something’s wrong. I can tell. What is it?” And he’ll look stunned and say, “How did you know?” He doesn’t realize something’s always wrong, with everybody. Often more than one thing. He doesn’t know everybody’s always going around all the time with something wrong and believing they’re exerting great willpower and control to keep other people, for whom they think nothing’s ever wrong, from seeing it.”— David Foster Wallace, The Pale King
Please be honest with me and tell me the truth. Tell me that you don’t enjoy being around me anymore. Tell me that you don’t look forward to our 8pm cuddles anymore. Tell me that when I wrap my hands around yours you feel like we’re a broken lightbulb. Tell me that my kisses now kill all the butterflies that I once put inside your stomach. Tell me you don’t feel the same way anymore. Please tell me the truth even though your words are going to damage my mind with a deep case of sadness.
- Alexa Evangelista, the book I’ll never finish writing
“Tolstoy teaches us that compassion is of value and enriches our life only when compassion is severe, which is to say when we can perceive everything that is good and bad about a character but are still able to feel that the sum of us as human beings is probably a little more good than awful. In any case, good or bad, it reminds us that life is like a gladiators’ arena for the soul and so we can feel strengthened by those who endure, and feel awe and pity for those who do not.”
- Norman Mailer, The Naked and the Dead
“There are only patterns, patterns on top of patterns, patterns that affect other patterns. Patterns hidden by patterns. Patterns within patterns. If you watch close, history does nothing but repeat itself. What we call chaos is just patterns we haven’t recognized. What we call random is just patterns we can’t decipher. what we can’t understand we call nonsense. What we can’t read we call gibberish. There is no free will. There are no variables.”— Chuck Palahniuk (via perfectquote)
“There are ways of being abandoned even when your parents are right there.”— Louise Erdrich, The Plague of Doves
“You know. Life’s short. If you don’t try new things, you’ll never know what you’re best at. And you can only make time or new things by quitting the things you know don’t work for you.”— Meg Cabot (via perfectquote)
“I missed you until I realized there was never really anything to miss but the peace I felt before I knew you.”— Unknown (via perfectquote)