All Quotes

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Everybody needs his memories. They keep the wolf of insignificance from the door.
— Saul Bellow
On Focus & Distraction
A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep.
— Saul Bellow
On Focus & Distraction
Three things in human life are important: the first is to be kind; the second is to be kind; and the third is to be kin…
— Henry James
On the Working Life
It takes an endless amount of history to make even a little tradition.
— Henry James
On Focus & Distraction
We work in the dark — we do what we can — we give what we have.
— Henry James
On the Working Life
Knowledge is of no value unless you put it into practice.
— Anton Chekhov
On Discipline
People don't notice whether it's winter or summer when they're happy.
— Anton Chekhov
On Anxiety & Quiet Days
Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.
— Anton Chekhov
On the Working Life
Any idiot can face a crisis. It's the day-to-day living that wears you out.
— Anton Chekhov
On Discipline
Imagination and fiction make up more than three-quarters of our real life.
— Simone Weil
On Focus & Distraction
To be rooted is perhaps the most important and least recognized need of the human soul.
— Simone Weil
On Purpose
Nobody has the right to obey.
— Hannah Arendt
On Confidence
The most radical revolutionary will become a conservative the day after the revolution.
— Hannah Arendt
On the Working Life
Forgiveness without a request from the offender does not constitute forgiveness, but a kind of contempt.
— Hannah Arendt
On Starting Over
We can only learn to love by loving.
— Iris Murdoch
On the Working Life
One of the secrets of a happy life is continuous small treats.
— Iris Murdoch
On Anxiety & Quiet Days
The only people I really love are the people I have not yet met.
— Iris Murdoch
On the Working Life
To do stupid things is part of being mortal.
— Susan Sontag
On Starting Over
Reading usually precedes writing. And the impulse to write is almost always fired by reading.
— Susan Sontag
On Focus & Distraction
Be serious. By which I mean: be passionate, be wide-awake, be in earnest.
— Susan Sontag
On Discipline
I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they w…
— James Baldwin
On Starting Over
To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a rage almost all the time.
— James Baldwin
On Anxiety & Quiet Days
Love takes off masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within.
— James Baldwin
On the Working Life
The most dangerous creation of any society is the man who has nothing to lose.
— James Baldwin
On Anxiety & Quiet Days
Better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than to open it and remove all doubt.
— Mark Twain
On Focus & Distraction
I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.
— Apostle Paul
On Anxiety & Quiet Days
The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.
— Sylvia Plath
On Confidence
I felt my lungs inflate with the onrush of scenery — air, mountains, trees, people. I thought, this is what it is to be…
— Sylvia Plath
On Anxiety & Quiet Days
Painting's not important. The important thing is keeping busy.
— Grandma Moses
On Discipline
Life is what we make it, always has been, always will be.
— Grandma Moses
On Starting Over