Quotes are a major inspiration in my life. They are a great way to remember the values that we consider close. In this post, I'm documenting a bunch of quotes that resonate with me and their stories wherever possible. I hope you find value in these little bites of wisdom.
- "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you", "Do not do unto others as you would not have them do unto you." — Treat others in a way you wish to be treated and don't treat them in a way you don't wish to be treated. Considered as the Golden and the Silver Rules, one or both of these variations can be found in Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, Stoicism and many other philosophical doctrines of the world and it dates back to at least 551 BCE. If there's any piece of ancient wisdom that we should strive to live up to, it's this one.
- "There are no good or bad emotions, only good and bad reactions to them. All emotions are human and natural." — Mark Manson.
- “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” — Viktor E Frankl. In his book "Man's Search for Meaning" from 1946, psychiatrist and holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl describes how he survived in the Nazi concentration camps during World War II. This is the core idea of this book — how one's attitude towards the situation helps him/her decide the outcome of the situation; how he and his fellow prisoners found a ray of hope when they started to see a sense of meaning and purpose out of their sufferings. This was a gut wrenching memoir and a peephole into the world of concentration camps, but there was so much value to take away.
- "Whenever you feel short or in need of something, give what you want first and it will come back in buckets. That is true for money, a smile, love, or friendship." — Robert T. Kiyosaki
- "Every man has two lives. The second one starts when he realizes he has just one." — Confucius.
- "People always fall into the trap of sounding smart than being smart. It’s a disease that consumes a lot of people. So it's important to check yourself from time to time — Will I be interested in learning this thing if I don’t get to or if I couldn’t tell anybody about it? That’s how you know if it’s real." — Naval Ravikant, in one of his numerous podcasts and tweets that I have consumed. I need a separate post to talk about this guy, but here's a drop of wisdom from him. Many more to come.
- "Confidence is not a belief in success. It’s a comfort with failure. It’s a belief in yourself, despite the understanding that you’re not always going to win." — Mark Manson. He goes on and explains in his video that somebody who is confident will be totally comfortable with the process of failing and still be willing to try things out.
- "Seek meaning than happiness. Be open to explore the world physically, through books, movies, music, etc. You will find pieces of yourself where you never thought you would." — Lana Blakely. She's a YouTuber I follow and I resonate with a lot of her ideas.
- "There is something to be learned [from everyone], but you can’t take their exact circumstance and map it onto yours. The best founders I know read and listen to everyone. But then they ignore everyone and make up their own mind. They have their own internal model of how to apply things to their situation. And they do not hesitate to discard information. If you survey enough people, all of their advice will cancel to zero." — Naval Ravikant.
- "Nullius In Verba" — This is the motto of the Royal Society, which is the UK's National Academy of Sciences. Roughly translated from Latin, it means "Take nobody's word for it". This emphasizes the importance of facts and experimentation in science, but this can be applied to life itself. Until something makes sense for us in our minds, it's okay to question things, dig deeper and try to understand better. This also goes well with #9. It's easy to get carried away with what we consume in this Information Age. We should not readily accept anything (including the contents of this post) and be open to question everything that doesn't make sense to us. It's important to take everything with a pinch of salt, but not rub the salt on others. The key is to question things with the intention of learning and curiosity, not for criticizing or testing others.
Some people live in our minds through the wisdom they passed on to us directly or through other mediums. I would love to hear the quotes you resonate with, so hit me up if you have any. Also, tell me your favorite one among the above 10. Thanks for reading. Peace out!
