Quote You Ask How I Know He Lives

21 Quotes That (If Applied) Change You lot Into a Improve Person

Every bit long equally homo has been alive, he has been collecting little sayings about how to live. We find them carved in the rock of the Temple of Apollo and etched as graffiti on the walls of Pompeii. They appear in the plays of Shakespeare, the commonplace book of H. P. Lovecraft, the collected proverbs of Erasmus, and the ceiling beams of Montaigne'south study. Today, they're recorded on iPhones and in Evernote.

But whatever generation is doing it, whether they're written by scribes in China or commoners in some European dungeon or just passed along past a kindly grandfather, these little epigrams of life communication accept taught essential lessons. How to answer to adversity. How to recall virtually money. How to meditate on our mortality. How to have courage.

And they pack all this in in so few words. "What is an epigram?" Coleridge asked, "A dwarfish whole; Its body brevity, and wit its soul." Epigrams are what Churchill was doing when he said: "To improve is to change, so to be perfect is to have changed oftentimes." Or Balzac: "All happiness depends on backbone and piece of work." Ah yep, epigrams are often funny besides. That's how nosotros remember them. Napoleon: "Never interrupt an enemy making a mistake." François de La Rochefoucauld: "Nosotros inappreciably find any persons of skilful sense save those who concord with us." Voltaire: "A long dispute ways that both parties are wrong."

Below are some wonderful epigrams that bridge some 21 centuries and 3 continents. Each one is worth remembering, having queued in your brain for one of life's crossroads or to drop at the perfect moment in chat. Each will change and evolve with yous as you evolve (Heraclitus: "No human being steps in the same river twice") and nonetheless each will remain potent and unyielding no thing how much you may one twenty-four hours endeavour to wiggle out and abroad from them.

Fundamentally, each ane will teach you how to exist a better person. If you let them.

"We must all either wear out or rust out, every i of us. My selection is to wear out." — Theodore Roosevelt

At the beginning of his life, few would accept predicted that Theodore Roosevelt even had a option in the matter. He was sickly and fragile, doted on by worried parents. Then, a chat with his father sent him driven, virtually maniacally in the other direction. "I will make my body," he said, when told that he would non arrive in this world with a brilliant heed in a frail body. What followed was a montage of boxing, hiking, horseback riding, hunting, fishing, swimming, boldly charging enemy burn, and then a grueling work pace as 1 of the most prolific and admired presidents in American history. Once again, this epigram was prophetic for Roosevelt, because at only 54 years old, his body began to clothing out. An bump-off endeavour left a bullet lodged in his torso and it hastened his rheumatoid arthritis. On his famous "River of Doubt" expedition he developed a tropical fever and the toxins from an infection in his leg left him nearly dead. Back in America he contracted a severe throat infection and was after diagnosed with inflammatory rheumatism, which temporarily bars him to a wheelchair (saying famously, "All right! I can work that way also!") and so he died at age threescore. But there is not a person on the planet who would say that he had non made a fair trade, that he had not worn his life well and not lived a total one in those threescore years.

"It's not what happens to you, but how you lot react to information technology that matters." — Epictetus

There is the story of the alcoholic male parent with ii sons. I follows in his father's footsteps and ends up struggling through life as a drunk, and the other becomes a successful, sober businessman. Each are asked: "Why are y'all the manner you are?" The reply for both is the aforementioned: "Well, it'south because my father was an alcoholic." The aforementioned consequence, the aforementioned childhood, two different outcomes. This is true for almost all situations — what happens to us is an objective reality, how nosotros respond is a subjective choice. The Stoics — of which Epictetus was one — would say that we don't control what happens to u.s.a., all we control are our thoughts and reactions to what happens to us. Remember that: You lot're defined in this life not by your practiced luck or your bad luck, but your reaction to those strokes of fortune. Don't let anyone tell you dissimilar.

"The best revenge is not to be like that." — Marcus Aurelius

There is a proverb about revenge: Before setting out for a journey of revenge, dig two graves. Because revenge is and then costly, considering the pursuit of it often wears on the one who covets information technology. Marcus's advice is easier and truer: How much better it feels to let information technology get, to leave the wrongdoer to their wrongdoing. And from what nosotros know, Marcus Aurelius lived this advice. When Avidius Cassius, one of his most trusted generals rebelled and declared himself emperor, Marcus did not seek vengeance. Instead, he saw this as an opportunity to teach the Roman people and the Roman Senate most how to bargain with civil strife in a empathetic, forgiving fashion. Indeed, when assassins struck Cassius down, Marcus supposedly wept. This is very unlike than the idea of "Living well existence the best revenge" — information technology's not nearly showing someone up or rubbing your success in their face. It's that the person who wronged you is not happy, is not enjoying their life. Practice non become like them. Reward yourself by being the opposite of them.

"There is good in everything, if only we look for information technology." — Laura Ingalls Wilder

Laura Ingalls Wilder, author of the classic series Little House, lived this, facing some of the toughest and unwelcoming elements on the planet: harsh and unyielding soil, Indian territory, Kansas prairies, and the humid weald of Florida. Non afraid, not jaded — because she saw it all equally an risk. Everywhere was a chance to do something new, to persevere with cheery pioneer spirit whatever fate befell her and her hubby. That isn't to say she saw the earth through delusional rose-colored glasses. Instead, she merely chose to see each situation for what it could be — accompanied by hard work and a little upbeat spirit. Others brand the contrary selection. Think: There is no skillful or bad without us, at that place is only perception. There is the event itself and the story we tell ourselves about what it means.

"Character is fate." — Heraclitus

In the hiring process, most employers look at where someone went to school, what jobs they've held in the past. This is considering past success can be an indicator of future successes. Just is information technology always? There are plenty of people who were successful because of luck. Perhaps they got into Oxford or Harvard considering of their parents. And what well-nigh a immature person who hasn't had fourth dimension to build a track record? Are they worthless? Of class not. This is why character is a far better measure of a human being or woman. Non just for jobs, but for friendships, relationships, for everything. When you seek to advance your ain position in life, character is the best lever — perhaps not in the short term, but certainly over the long term. And the same goes for the people you invite into your life.

"If you see fraud and do not say fraud, you are a fraud." — Nicholas Nassim Taleb

A man shows up for work at a company where he knows that management is doing something wrong, something unethical. How does he respond? Can he greenbacks his checks in good conscience because he isn't the 1 running upwards the stock cost, falsifying reports or lying to his co-workers? No. One cannot, equally Budd Schulberg says in ane of his novels, bargain in filth without becoming the matter he touches. We should look upwardly to a immature homo at Theranos as an example here. After discovering numerous problems at the health intendance startup, he was dismissed past his seniors and somewhen contacted the authorities. Later, non but was this young human being repeatedly threatened, bullied, and attacked by Theranos, merely his family had to consider selling their firm to pay for the legal bills. His relationship with his grandfather — who sits on the Theranos board — is strained and perhaps irreparable. As Marcus Aurelius reminded himself, and us: "Just that yous practice the correct thing. The residue doesn't matter." Information technology's an important reminder. Doing the correct affair isn't gratis. Doing the right thing might even toll yous everything.

"Every man I meet is my main in some point, and in that I learn of him." — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Everyone is improve than you at something. This is a fact of life. Someone is improve than you at making centre contact. Someone is better than you at breakthrough physics. Someone is amend informed than you on geopolitics. Someone is better than you are at speaking kindly to someone they dislike. In that location are better gift-givers, name-rememberers, weight-lifters, temper-controllers, confidence-carriers, and friendship-makers. In that location is no 1 person who is the best at all these things, who doesn't have room to amend in one or more of them. Then if you can find the humility to accept this about yourself, what yous volition realize is that the world is 1 giant classroom. Go well-nigh your day with an openness and a joy about this fact. Await at every interaction as an opportunity to learn from and of the people you come across. You will be amazed at how rapidly y'all grow, how much meliorate y'all get.

"This is not your responsibleness but it is your trouble." — Cheryl Strayed

It is not your responsibleness to fill a stranger's gas tank, but when their auto dies in front of you, blocking the road, it's however your problem isn't it? It is not your responsibleness to negotiate peace treaties on behalf of your state, simply when war breaks out and you're drafted to fight in it? Approximate whose trouble information technology is? Yours. Life is like this. It has a way of dropping things into our lap — the consequences of an employee's negligence, a spouse's momentary lapse of sentence, a freak weather result — that were in no manner our mistake only by nature of existence in our lap, our f*cking problem. So what are yous going to do? Complain? Are you going to litigate this in a blogpost or an argument with God? Or are you just going to get to work solving it the best you can? Life is defined by how you answer that question. Cheryl Strayed is right. This thing might non exist your responsibleness but it is your problem. And so accept it, deal with it, kicking its ass.

"Waste no more than time arguing what a good homo should be. Be one." — Marcus Aurelius

In Rome just equally America, in the forum just as on Facebook, there was the temptation to replace action with argument. To philosophize instead of living philosophically. Today, in a society obsessed with content, outrage, and drama, it's fifty-fifty easier to become lost in the echo sleeping accommodation of the debate of what's "improve." Nosotros can have endless discussions about what'south correct and wrong. What should we do in this hypothetical state of affairs or that 1? How tin can we encourage other people to be ameliorate? (We tin fifty-fifty argue the meaning of the above line: "What's a man? What's the definition of skilful? Why doesn't it mention women?") Of course, this is all a lark. If you lot desire to try to make the world a slightly better place, there'south a lot you tin do. But only one thing guarantees an touch on. Step abroad from the argument. Dig yourself out of the rubble. Stop wasting time with how things should be, would be, could exist. Be that thing. (Here's a cool poster of this quote).

"Yous are only entitled to the activity, never to its fruits." — Bhagavad Gita

In life, it's a fact that: Y'all will be unappreciated. You volition be sabotaged. You will experience surprising failures. Your expectations volition not be met. Y'all will lose. You lot volition neglect. How do you acquit on then? How do you lot take pride in yourself and your work? John Wooden's advice to his players says it: Alter the definition of success. "Success is peace of mind, which is a straight result of cocky satisfaction in knowing yous made the effort to do your all-time to go the all-time that you are capable of becoming." "Ambition," Marcus Aurelius reminded himself, "means tying your well-existence to what other people say or practice . . . Sanity ways tying it to your own actions." Exercise your work. Do it well. Then "let go and permit God." That's all there needs to be. Recognition and rewards — those are simply extra.

"Self-sufficiency is the greatest of all wealth." — Epicurus

A lot has been said of so-chosen "F*ck You Coin." The idea being that if 1 tin earn enough, go rich and powerful enough, that of a sudden no 1 can affect them and they tin do whatever they want. What a mirage this is! How often the target seems to mysteriously motion correct as we approach it. It calls to mind the observation of David "DHH" Heinemeier Hansson who said that "beyond a specific corporeality, f*ck-you money can exist a state of listen. One that y'all can acquire well in advance of the corresponding banking company account. I that'due south founded mostly on a personal conviction that even if most of the material trappings went abroad, y'all'd nevertheless be happier for standing your ground." The truth is being your ain human being, being self-contained, having fewer needs, and amend, resilient skills that allow y'all to thrive in any and all situations. That is real wealth and freedom. That's what Emerson was talking well-nigh in his famous essay on self-reliance and it'southward what Epicurus meant too.

"Tell me to what you pay attention and I will tell you who you lot are." — Jose Ortega y Gasset

It was i of the great Stoics who said that if you live with a lame man, soon enough you volition walk with a limp. My male parent told me something like as a child: "You get similar your friends." It is truthful non merely with social influences only informational ones too: If you are fond to the chatter of the news, yous will presently find yourself worried, resentful, and perpetually outraged. If you eat nothing but escapist entertainment, you will find the real globe around you harder and harder to deal with. If all you lot do is lookout the markets and obsess over every fluctuation, your worldview will become defined by coin and gains and losses. Only if y'all drink from deep, philosophical wisdom? If you have regularly in your mind role models of restraint, sobriety, courage, and honour? Well, you will start to go these things too. Tell me who you spend time with, Goethe said, and I will tell yous who you are. Tell me what you pay attention to, Gasset was maxim, and I tin tell y'all the same thing. Call up that the next time you feel your finger itching to pull up your Facebook feed.

"Better to trip with the anxiety than with the natural language." — Zeno

You can always get up after yous fall, but call back, what has been said tin can never be unsaid. Peculiarly vicious and hurtful things.

"Infinite I can recover. Time, never." — Napoleon Bonaparte

Lands tin can exist reconquered, indeed in the course of a battle, a colina or a certain plain might trade hands several times. But missed opportunities? These can never exist regained. Moments in time, in culture? They tin never be re-made. I can never go back in time to prepare for what they should have prepared for, no i tin always get dorsum disquisitional seconds that were wasted out of fear or ego. Napoleon was brilliant at trading infinite for time: Sure, you can brand these moves, provided yous are giving me the time I demand to drill my troops, or move them to where I want them to be. Yet in life, most of us are terrible at this. We merchandise an hour of our life here or afternoon in that location like it tin can be bought back with the few dollars we were paid for information technology. And information technology is only much much subsequently, as they are on their deathbeds or when they are looking back on what might have been, that many people realize the awful truth of this quote. Don't do that. Encompass information technology now.

"Y'all never know who'southward pond naked until the tide goes out." — Warren Buffett

The problem with comparison yourself to other people is you actually never know anyone else'due south situation. The co-worker with a nice auto? It could be a dangerous and unsafe relieve with 100,000 miles. The friend who always seems to exist traveling to far off places? They could be upwardly to their eyeballs in credit menu debt and about to get fired past their dominate. Your neighbors' wedlock which makes you then insecure about your own? It could be a nightmare, a consummate prevarication. People practise a very good job pretending at things, and their well-maintained fronts are often covers for incredible risk and irresponsibility. Yous never know, Warren Buffett was saying, until things get bad. If you're living the life you know to be right, if y'all are making good, solid decisions, don't exist swayed by what others are doing — whether that is taking the form of irrational exuberance or panicked cynicism. See the loftier flying lives of others every bit a cautionary tale — similar Icarus with his wings — and not equally an inspiration or a source of insecurity. Keep doing what you lot're doing and don't be caught swimming naked! Because the tide volition get out. Set for information technology! (Premeditatio Malorum)

"Search others for their virtues, thyself for thy vices." — Benjamin Franklin

Marcus Aurelius would say something similar: "Be tolerant with others and strict with yourself." Why? For starters because the only person you control is yourself. It'due south a consummate waste of fourth dimension to go around projecting strict standards on other people — ones they never agreed to follow in the first identify — and then being aghast or experience wronged when they fall brusk. The other reason is y'all have no idea what other people are going or have been through. That person who seemed to rudely decline the invitation you so kindly offered? What if they were working hard to recommit themselves to their family and as much every bit they'd similar to take java with you, are doing their best to spend more time with their loved ones? The point is: You accept no thought. So give people the do good of the doubt. Wait for expert in them, assume good in them, and allow that practiced inspire your ain deportment.

"The world was not large plenty for Alexander the Great, but a bury was." — Juvenal

Ah, the way that a good one liner tin apprehensive even the earth's greatest conqueror. Remember: we are all equals in death. It makes quick work of all of usa, big and pocket-size. I carry a coin in my pocket to recollect this: Memento Mori. What Juvenal reminds u.s.a. is the same thing that Shakespeare spoke virtually in Hamlet:

"Imperious Caesar, dead and turned to clay,
Might end a pigsty to go along the wind away.
O' that that globe which kept the globe in awe
Should patch a wall t' expel the winder'southward flaw!"

It doesn't matter how famous yous are, how powerful you lot are, how much you recollect yous have left to do on this planet, the aforementioned thing happens to all of us, and it tin can happen when nosotros to the lowest degree await information technology. And so we will be wormfood and that's the end of information technology.

"To improve is to change, so to be perfect is to accept changed often." — Winston Churchill

While this is probably non a Churchill original (he most likely borrowed from Cardinal Newman: "In a higher world information technology is otherwise, simply hither beneath to live is to change, and to be perfect is to accept changed often"), Churchill certainly abided this in his life. He'd even quip nigh his constant change of political affiliation: "I said a lot of stupid things when I worked with the Bourgeois Political party, and I left information technology because I did not desire to keep proverb stupid things." Equally Cicero would say when attacked that he was irresolute his opinion: "If something strikes me every bit probable, I say it; and that is how, unlike everyone else, I remain a free agent." At that place is nothing more than impressive — intellectually or otherwise — than to alter long held beliefs, opinions, and habits. The more than you've changed, the ameliorate you probably are.

"Judge not, lest y'all be judged." — Jesus

Not only hither would Jesus telephone call us on one of our worst tendencies but immediately too ask: "And why do you look at the speck in your blood brother's eye, but exercise not consider the plank in your own eye?" This line is similar to what the Stoic philosopher Seneca, who historical sources suggest was born the aforementioned year as Jesus, would say: "You expect at the pimples of others when you yourselves are covered with a mass of sores." Waste no time judging and worrying near other people. You lot accept plenty of problems to deal with in your own life. Chances are your own flaws are probably worse — and in any case, they are at least in your control. So do something about them.

"Time and patience are the strongest warriors." — Leo Tolstoy

Tolstoy puts the above words in the oral cavity of Field Marshall Mikhail Kutuzov in War and Peace. In real life, Kutuzov gave Napoleon a painful lesson in the truth of the epigram over a long winter in Russia in 1812. Tolstoy would also say, "Everything comes in time to him who knows how to look." When it comes to accomplishing anything significant, y'all are required to exhibit patience and fortitude, so much patience, equally much as you'd think you'd need boldness and courage. In my book Conspiracy, about Peter Thiel'southward plot to destroy Gawker, his operative describes a like thought: With enough time and patience, you can practise annihilation.

"No i saves united states only ourselves / No one tin and no one may." — Buddha

Will we wait for someone to save us, or will nosotros mind to Marcus Aurelius's empowering phone call to "get active in your own rescue — if you treat yourself at all — and practice it while you tin."

Because at some point, nosotros must put articles like this i aside and take action. No ane tin can blow our olfactory organ for usa. Another weblog post isn't the answer. The right choices and decisions are. Who knows how much fourth dimension you accept left, or what awaits us tomorrow? And then become to it.