Miska > Miska's Quotes

“I'm the idea of the human imagination, which, when you think about it, is the only thing we can really be certain ISN'T imaginary.”
― Alan Moore, Promethea, Vol. 5

“Our consciousness, a startling outgrowth of the universe, is possibly its most important part, the fraction of existence that can think, feel, marvel at itself.”
― Alan Moore, Promethea, Vol. 5

“Consciousness, unprovable by scientific standards, is forever, then, the impossible phantom in the predictable biologic machine, and your every thought a genuine supernatural event. Your every thought is a ghost, dancing.”
― Alan Moore, Promethea, Vol. 5

“The only reality we can ever truly know is that of our perceptions, our own consciousness, while that consciousness, and thus our entire reality, is made of nothing but signs and symbols. Nothing but language.
Even God requires language before conceiving the Universe. See Genesis: “In the beginning was the Word.”
― Alan Moore, Promethea, Vol. 5

“PREFACE PROBLEM: Nobody reads prefaces.
SOLUTION: Call the preface Chapter 1.
NEW PROBLEM CREATED BY SOLUTION: Chapter 1 is boring.
RESOLUTION: Throw away Chapter 1 and call Chapter 2 Chapter 1.”
― Gerald M. Weinberg

“If you treat an individual as he is, he will remain how he is. But if you treat him as if he were what he ought to be and could be, he will become what he ought to be and could be.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“People simply feel better about themselves when they’re good at something.”
― Stephen R. Covey, The 8th Habit: From Effectiveness to Greatness

“people are working harder than ever, but because they lack clarity and vision, they aren’t getting very far. They, in essence, are pushing a rope...with all of their might.”
― Stephen R. Covey, The 8th Habit: From Effectiveness to Greatness

“Nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

“When mores are sufficient, laws are unnecessary; when mores are insufficient, laws are unenforceable.”
― Émile Durkheim

“The rules themselves are clear enough, and within everyone’s reach. But many forces, both within ourselves and in the environment, stand in the way. It is a little like trying to lose weight: everyone knows what it takes, everyone wants to do it, yet it is next to impossible for so many.”
― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience

“..Such practices and beliefs, which interfere with happiness, are neither inevitable nor necessary; they evolved by chance, as a result of random responses to accidental conditions. But once they become part of the norms and habits of a culture, people assume that this is how things must be; they come to believe they have no other options.”
― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience

“You can change only what people know, not what they do.”
― Scott Adams, God's Debris: A Thought Experiment

“Control of consciousness determines the quality of life.”
― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience

“The chicken is only an egg’s way for making another egg.”
― Richard Dawkins

“It might be true that it is “quality time” that counts, but after a certain point quantity has a bearing on quality.”
― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience

“But shortcuts are dangerous; we cannot delude ourselves that our knowledge is further along than it actually is.”
― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement with Everyday Life

“Socializing is more positive than being alone, that’s why meetings are so popular. People don’t like being alone. That would be, however, an important skill to learn...”
― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement with Everyday Life

“These examples suggest what one needs to learn to control attention. In principle any skill or discipline one can master on one’s own will serve: meditation and prayer if one is so inclined; exercise, aerobics, martial arts for those who prefer concentrating on physical skills. Any specialization or expertise that one finds enjoyable and where one can improve one’s knowledge over time. The important thing, however, is the attitude toward these disciplines. If one prays in order to be holy, or exercises to develop strong pectoral muscles, or learns to be knowledgeable, then a great deal of the benefit is lost. The important thing is to enjoy the activity for its own sake, and to know that what matters is not the result, but the control one is acquiring over one’s attention.”
― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement with Everyday Life

“If one has failed to develop curiosity and interest in the early years, it is a good idea to acquire them now, before it is too late to improve the quality of life.
To do so is fairly easy in principle, but more difficult in practice. Yet it is sure worth trying. The first step is to develop the habit of doing whatever needs to be done with concentrated attention, with skill rather than inertia. Even the most routine tasks, like washing dishes, dressing, or mowing the lawn become more rewarding if we approach them with the care it would take to make a work of art. The next step is to transfer some psychic energy each day from tasks that we don’t like doing, or from passive leisure, into something we never did before, or something we enjoy doing but don’t do often enough because it seems too much trouble. There are literally millions of potentially interesting things in the world to see, to do, to learn about. But they don’t become actually interesting until we devote attention to them.”
― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement with Everyday Life

“Solving a problem in a hundred years is, practically speaking, the same as not solving it at all.”
― Steven Pinker, How the Mind Works

“Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.”
― Samuel Johnson, The Life of Samuel Johnson LL.D. Vol 3

“Trivers, pursuing his theory of the emotions to its logical conclusion, notes that in a world of walking lie detectors the best strategy is to believe your own lies. You can’t leak your hidden intentions if you don’t think they are your intentions. According to his theory of self-deception, the conscious mind sometimes hides the truth from itself the better to hide it from others. But the truth is useful, so it should be registered somewhere in the mind, walled off from the parts that interact with other people.”
― Steven Pinker, How the Mind Works

“The secret of rulership is to combine a belief in one’s own infallibility with a power to learn from past mistakes.”
― George Orwell, 1984

“All other swindlers upon earth are nothing to the self-swindlers, and with such pretences did I cheat myself. Surely a curious thing. That I should innocently take a bad half-crown of somebody else's manufacture, is reasonable enough; but that I should knowingly reckon the spurious coin of my own make, as good money!”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

“Actual happiness always looks pretty squalid in comparison with the overcompensations for misery. And, of course, stability isn't nearly so spectacular as instability. And being contented has none of the glamour of a good fight against misfortune, none of the picturesqueness of a struggle with temptation, or a fatal overthrow by passion or doubt. Happiness is never grand.”
― Aldous Huxley, Brave New World

“The task of evolutionary psychology is not to weigh in on human nature, a task better left to others. It is to add the satisfying kind of insight that only science can provide: to connect what we know about human nature with the rest of our knowledge of how the world works, and to explain the largest number of facts with the smallest number of assumptions.”
― Steven Pinker, How the Mind Works

“Some books are undeservedly forgotten; none are undeservedly remembered.”
― W.H. Auden, The Dyer's Hand and Other Essays

“I dedicate the merit of the occasion to all beings. This gesture of universal friendship has been likened to a drop of fresh spring water. If we put it on a rock in the sunshine, it will soon evaporate. If we put it in the ocean, however, it will never be lost. Thus the wish is made that we not keep the teachings to ourselves but to use them to benefit others.”
― Pema Chödrön, The Places That Scare You: A Guide to Fearlessness in Difficult Times

“We may have a perfectly adequate way of doing something, but that does not mean there cannot be a better way. So we set out to find an alternative way. This is the basis of any improvement that is not fault correction or problem solving.”
― Edward De Bono, Six Thinking Hats