adam.nz aboutpostsprojectscontact

41 Random Quotes

The plural of anecdote is data.
— Raymond Wolfinger «danwin.com» in #nerding & #teaching

I had a discussion with a great master in Japan, and we were talking about the various people who are working to translate the Zen books into English, and he said, “That’s a waste of time. If you really understand Zen, you can use any book. You could use the Bible. You could use Alice in Wonderland. You could use the dictionary, because the sound of the rain needs no translation.

— Alan Watts in #loving
I am, by calling, a dealer in words; and words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind.
— Rudyard Kipling
Why do you never find anything written about that idiosyncratic thought you advert to, about your fascination with something no on else understands? Because it is up to you. There is something you find interesting, for a reason hard to explain. It is hard to explain because you have never read it on any page; there you begin. You were made and set here to give voice to this, your own astonishment.
— Annie Dillard «“The Writing Life”»

In ancient times cats were worshipped as gods; they have not forgotten this.

— Terry Pratchett in #laughing & #reflecting

We live in capitalism.  Its power seems inescapable.  So did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. 

— Ursula Le Guin in #daring, #making & #teaching
One man's paradise is another man's opportunity.
— Adam Shand
Our cells outshine the stars: each ounce of living human tissue burns ten thousand times more energy each day than an ounce of the Sun.
— Herman Pontzer «

Burn

»
Because they didn't know better, they called it civilization, when it was part of their slavery.
— Tacitus «

Agricola

»
The opposite of war isn't peace … it's creation.
— Jonathan Larson in #healing, #making & #teaching
And where we had thought to find an abomination, we shall find a god; where we had thought to slay another, we shall slay ourselves; where we had thought to travel outward, we shall come to the center of our own existence; where we had thought to be alone, we shall be with all the world.
— Joseph Campbell «The Hero with a Thousand Faces»
All being, it seemed, was built on opposites, on division. […] Always the one paid for the other, though each was equally precious and essential.
— Hermann Hesse «Narcissus and Goldmund»
When Alexander saw the breadth of his domain, he wept, for there were no more worlds to conquer.
— Plutarch «“Life of Alexander”»
House finished, man dies.
— Proverb «

Chinese

»
Talent is long patience.
— Gustav Flaubert
We should have a great many fewer disputes in the world if only words were taken for what they are, the signs of our ideas only, and not for things themselves.
— John Locke
So I find the likelihood that mind fucking turns you into an irrational, postmodernist fool quite high … If we wanted to prevent people from getting stupid, perhaps we should start with the most harmful idiot-drugs of them all: TV and religion.
— Eloquence «kuro5hin.org»
I need someone to protect me from all the measures they take in order to protect me.
— Banksy «banksy.co.uk»
We’re grandparents falling out of the sky.
— Lance Mountain «Until the Wheels Fall Off» in #laughing
We do not have to settle for being less bad for the earth. We can actually be good for the earth. We are not destructive by nature, but by habit. And our potential for destruction is mirrored by our potential for regeneration.
— Neal Spackman «The Story of Al Baydha»

Your preparation for the real world is not in the answers you've learned, but in the questions you've learned how to ask yourself.

— Bill Watterson «

Some Thoughts on the Real World by One Who Glimpsed It and Fled

» in #teaching
But from another, deeper perspective: we shouldn't involve outselves in lines of development where the ultimate victory condition is emulating dead people. There's no appeal in that. It's bad for us. That kind of inherent mournfulness is just not a good way to be human.
— Bruce Sterling «State of the World 2007»
Men are qualified for civil liberty, in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites; in proportion as their love of justice is above their rapacity; in proportion as their soundness and sobriety of understanding is above their vanity and presumption; in proportion as they are more disposed to listen to the counsels of the wise and good, in preference to the flattery of knaves. Society cannot exist unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere, and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without…men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.
— Edmund Burke «A Letter to a Member of the National Assembly»
And the old drivers are no longer helpful. In the past, we may have been able to “power through”, by setting goals, and by positive thinking, and with self-discipline and effort. We now have the intuition that this sort of self-forcing cannot be sustained.
— Kaushik «Dark Night of the Soul»

The only difference between a rut and a grave is their length.

— Proverb «

via Building Love that Lasts

» in #crying, #failing & #healing
All life's best decisions are generally preceded by an audible “fuck it”.
— Michael Koziarski «@nzkoz»
Complex systems are weakened, even killed, when deprived of stressors.
— Nassim Taleb in #breaking, #designing & #healing

I drink much less than most people think, and I think much more than most people would believe.

— Hunter S. Thompson «

Proud Highway

»
My gut is that most conspiracy theorists have never been project managers. Their optimism is adorable.
— Merlin Mann «@hotdogsladies»
… if this stuff isn't disturbing you, it's not working. If it isn't shaking up your coziness, it's not working.
— John Peacock «The Buddha Doesn't Do “Cosy”»
Our survival as a species depends on our ability to recognize that our well-being and the well-being of others are in fact one and the same.
— Marshall Rosenberg
Elves seldom give unguarded advice, for advice is a dangerous gift, even from the wise to the wise, and all courses may run ill.
— J.R.R. Tolkien «The Fellowship of the Ring»
Dare to be as big as you can afford to be. And then be even bigger than that. Be bigger than you can afford to be.
— Tim Smit «Tim Smit Created Eden, Dumbo Feather»
I will be famous. Just wait a century or two.
— Frank Meyer «The Mysterious Life and Death of Frank Meyer»
In dwelling, live close to the ground. In thinking, keep it to the simple. In conflict, be fair and generous. In governing, don't try to control. In work, do what you enjoy. In family life, be completely present.
— Laozi «Tao Te Ching»
Pleasure is the object, the duty, the goal of all rational creatures.
— M. de Voltaire
Some luck lies in not getting what you thought you wanted but getting what you have, which once you have it you may be smart enough to see is what you would have wanted had you known.
— Garrison Keillor
Fate leads the willing, and drags along the reluctant.
— Lucius Annaeus Seneca
There is nothing that will cure the senses but the soul, and nothing that will cure the soul but the senses.
— Oscar Wilde
We don't seek out the forbidden, we just repudiate any notion of authorization.
— Lazar Kunstmann «The Lizard, the Catacombs and the Clock»

There is hardly anything in the world that some man cannot make a little worse and sell a little cheaper, and the people who consider price only are this man’s lawful prey.

— John Ruskin «

maybe

» in #crying, #failing & #laughing