James Gerhardt > James's Quotes

“I have never understood why it is "greed" to want to keep the money you have earned but not greed to want to take somebody else's money.”
― Thomas Sowell, Barbarians Inside the Gates and Other Controversial Essays

“People who pride themselves on their "complexity" and deride others for being "simplistic" should realize that the truth is often not very complicated. What gets complex is evading the truth.”
― Thomas Sowell, Barbarians Inside the Gates and Other Controversial Essays

“Don't you get tired of seeing so many "non-conformists" with the same non-conformist look?”
― Thomas Sowell, Ever Wonder Why? And Other Controversial Essays

“Whenever someone refers to me as someone "who happens to be black," I wonder if they realize that both my parents are black. If I had turned out to be Scandinavian or Chinese, people would have wondered what was going on.”
― Thomas Sowell

“A mere enumeration of government activity is evidence -- often the sole evidence offered -- of "inadequate" nongovernment institutions, whose "inability" to cope with problems "obviously" required state intervention. Government is depicted as acting not in response to its own political incentives and constraints but because it is compelled to do so by concern for the public interest: it "cannot keep its hands off" when so "much is at stake," when emergency "compels" it to supersede other decision making processes. Such a tableau simple ignores the possibility that there are political incentives for the production and distribution of "emergencies" to justify expansions of power as well as to use episodic emergencies as a reason for creating enduring government institutions.”
― Thomas Sowell, Knowledge and Decisions

“Too much of what is called "education" is little more than an expensive isolation from reality.”
― Thomas Sowell

“When Jesus put on flesh, He made human existence “sacred.” Thus, when you are inhabited by Jesus through His Holy Spirit, your life takes on the “sacred” characteristic as well. This does not mean that you become God or incapable of sinning like Jesus was in His incarnation. However, it does mean that something is qualitatively different about you at the core.”
― Adam L. Feldman, Journaling: Catalyzing Spiritual Growth Through Reflection

“This is what you do when you journal. You are recording God’s grand, epoch-spanning redemptive story as it unfolds in your limited, temporal sphere of existence here on earth. Your journal has the potential to record the continuation of the Holy Spirit’s work in our world!”
― Adam L. Feldman, Journaling: Catalyzing Spiritual Growth Through Reflection

“There is, of course, always the personal satisfaction of writing down one's own experiences so they may be saved, caught and pinned under glass, hoarded against the winter of forgetfulness. Time has been cheated a little, at least, in one's own life, and a personal, trivial immortality of an old self assured.”
― Anne Morrow Lindbergh, North to the Orient

“Writing is the only way I have to explain my own life to myself.”
― Pat Conroy, My Reading Life

“He captures memories because if he forgets them, it's as though they didn't happen.”
― Donald Miller, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: What I Learned While Editing My Life

“The young John Quincy Adams begins it lifelong habit of keeping a journal with reluctance that he might one day have to read it. He hopes, though, that the flaws in his earlier entries will be balanced by the progress he is able to see.”
― Paul C. Nagel, John Quincy Adams: A Public Life, a Private Life

“Let’s end the notion that ideas have no value unless they turn into a business or have some other practical use. Save them all in a beautiful book like Leonardo did. You might want to give them away someday, perhaps to someone who needs an idea. Or your great-great-grandchildren might love knowing what a fascinating mind you had. Or your biographer might be very happy after you’re gone.”
― Barbara Sher, Refuse to Choose!: Use All of Your Interests, Passions, and Hobbies to Create the Life and Career of Your Dreams

“This is the age," she explained to me once as we walked home from school, "when we're the purest forms of ourselves we'll ever be. We haven't been complicated by everything yet. I want to keep a clear record of who I am, so that down the road I'll be able to see who I was. Maybe I can avoid losing myself completely."

She sighed, biting her lip pensively. "Things happen," she said. "Small things and large things, and they just keep changing you, little by little, until there's no trace of who you used to be. If I get lost, this journal will be like a record of who I was, a trail of bread crumbs to find my way back.”
― Jonathan Tropper, The Book of Joe

“Each Bullet Journal becomes another volume in the story of your life. Does it represent the life you want to live? If not, then leverage the lessons you've learned to change the narrative in the next volume.”
― Ryder Carroll, The Bullet Journal Method: Track Your Past, Order Your Present, Plan Your Future

“Journal writing gives us insights into who we are, who we were, and who we can become.”
― Sandra Marinella, The Story You Need to Tell: Writing to Heal from Trauma, Illness, or Loss

“Journaling can be an excellent way to increase self-awareness, discover and change habits.”
― Akiroq Brost

“Want to know one of the most rewarding and holistic ways to heal & make significant life choices that will fully align? Learning to slow down, breath, think, journal, talk, and process before reacting. Knowing you have worked through the issue, be it mentally, emotionally or spiritually, before taking action lets you write the script of your life how you want. Which in turn gives you the best chance of achieving your dreams”
― Natasha Potter

“Journaling is a great way to pay attention to “how it all came to be.” In looking back, you gain insight into (and appreciation for) your challenges, lessons, and perseverance.”
― Melissa Steginus, Self Care at Work: How to Reduce Stress, Boost Productivity, and Do More of What Matters

“If kids reflect on their days, they will become better problem-solvers of life.”
― Trevor Carss

“Reflection goes hand-in-hand with assessment and leads to long-lasting growth and change (in combination with action, of course).”
― Melissa Steginus, Self Care at Work: How to Reduce Stress, Boost Productivity, and Do More of What Matters

“You review the past to assess the present and then determine what actions are necessary to change your future. You take what you know and apply it to how you want to grow. Thus, the power of journaling.”
― Melissa Steginus, Self Care at Work: How to Reduce Stress, Boost Productivity, and Do More of What Matters

“I never wrote things down to remember;
I always wrote things down so I could forget.”
― Matthew McConaughey, Greenlights

“Journal writing is a voyage to the interior.”
― Christina Baldwin

“If I can only write my memoir once, how do I edit it?”
― S. Kelley Harrell

“Once a day, especially in the early years of life and study, call yourselves to an account what new ideas, what new proposition or truth you have gained, what further confirmation of known truths, and what advances you have made in any part of knowledge.”
― Isaac Watts, The Improvement Of The Mind To Which Are Added A Discourse On The Education Of Children

“Keeping a journal: The short entries are often as dry as instant tea. Writing them down is like pouring hot water over them to release their aroma.”
― Ernst Jünger, A German Officer in Occupied Paris: The War Journals, 1941-1945

“Jake always liked his books and stories. And writing in his diaries. It was a comfort for him. He could work through things that way.”
“That’s nice. I’ve noticed he still likes to write. He spends a lot of time writing.”
“That’s how he makes sense of the world.”
― Iain Reid, I'm Thinking of Ending Things

“Only when she has re-created in ink upon parchment what she saw does she fully understand it. Visions are not complete until they have been set down and stepped away from, turned this way and that in the hand.”
― Lauren Groff, Matrix

“You don’t care about those first three pages; those you will throw out, those you needed to write to get to that fourth page, to get to that one long paragraph that was what you had in mind when you started, only you didn’t know that, couldn’t know that, until you got to it.”
― Anne Lamott