But happiness cannot be pursued; it must ensue. One must have a reason to “be happy.” Once the reason is found, however, one becomes happy automatically.
Viktor E. Frankl (1905 – 1997), Man’s Search for Meaning
Tag: Quotations
Man is capable of changing the world for the better if possible, and of changing himself for the better if necessary.
Viktor E. Frankl (1905 – 1997), Man’s Search for Meaning
Continue reading “Churchill’s cry for brevity – @UKNatArchives”I hope that … our Ambassadors and Agents abroad will be asked to bear in mind the strain on the cyphering departments and those who have to read their messages. The number and length of messages sent by a diplomatist are no measure of his efficiency.
Panta rhei.
Greek: “Everything changes” or “Life is flux”
Heraclitus (c. 540 – 480 BC)
Love nothing but that which comes to you woven in the pattern of your destiny. For what could more aptly fit your needs?
Marcus Aurelius (AD 120 – 180), Meditations (7.57)
I do the best I know how, the very best I can; and I mean to keep doing so until the end. If the end brings me out all right, what is said against me will not amount to anything. If the end brings me out wrong, ten angels swearing I was right would make no difference.
Abraham Lincoln (1809 – 1865), as reported by Colonel Charles. G. Halpin
In your power at all times and places there lies a pious acceptance of the day’s happenings, a just dealing towards the day’s associates, and a scrupulous attention to the day’s impressions, lest any of them gain an entrance unverified.
Marcus Aurelius (AD 120 – 180), Meditations (7.54)
‘All born of earth must unto earth return;
All growths of heav’nly seed to heav’n revert.’– by the disintegration, that is, of their atomic structure and the dispersion of their uncaring elements.
Marcus Aurelius (AD 120 – 180), Meditations (7.50)
you say, science itself will teach man (though to my mind it’s a superfluous luxury) that he never has really had any caprice or will of his own, and that he himself is something of the nature of a piano-key or the stop of an organ, and that there are, besides, things called the laws of nature; so that everything he does is not done by his willing it, but is done of itself, by the laws of nature. Consequently we have only to discover these laws of nature, and man will no longer have to answer for his actions and life will become exceedingly easy for him. All human actions will then, of course, be tabulated according to these laws, mathematically, like tables of logarithms up to 108,000, and entered in an index; or, better still, there would be published certain edifying works of the nature of encyclopaedic lexicons, in which everything will be so clearly calculated and explained that there will be no more actions or adventures in the world.
Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821 – 1881) , Notes from Underground, Part 1, chap. 6
If your generosity is good and sincere it may pass unnoticed and it will not save you from being reproached for its opposite. If you want to sustain a reputation for generosity, therefore, you have to be ostentatiously lavish; and a prince acting in that fashion will soon squander all his resources…
Niccolo Machiavelli (1469 – 1527), The Prince, chapter 16