Brandon Hall > Brandon's Quotes

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#1

“Laws and principles are not for the times when there is no temptation: they are for such moments as this, when body and soul rise in mutiny against their rigour ... If at my convenience I might break them, what would be their worth?”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

tags: body, doctrine, ethics, law, morality, principles, religion, soul, steadfastness, temptation

846 likes

#2

“Temptation is the feeling we get when encountered by an opportunity to do what we innately know we shouldn't.”
― Steve Maraboli

tags: choice, inspirational, life, opportunity-temptation, temptation

100 likes

#3

“Whenever the devil harasses you, seek the company of men or drink more, or joke and talk nonsense, or do some other merry thing. Sometimes we must drink more, sport, recreate ourselves, and even sin a little to spite the devil, so that we leave him no place for troubling our consciences with trifles. We are conquered if we try too conscientiously not to sin at all. So when the devil says to you: do not drink, answer him: I will drink, and right freely, just because you tell me not to.”
― Martin Luther

tags: beer, devil, drinking, temptation

190 likes

#4

“Rise above the deceptions and temptations of the mind. This is your duty. You are born for this only; all other duties are self-created and self-imposed owing to ignorance.”
― Sivananda

tags: deception, duty, mind, spirit, temptation

75 likes

#5

“You've been brought up like a gentleman and a Christian, and I should be false to the trust laid upon me by your dead father and mother if I allowed you to expose yourself to such temptation.'

Well, I know I'm not a Christian and I'm beginning to doubt whether I'm a gentleman,' said Philip.”
― W. Somerset Maugham, Of Human Bondage

tags: gentlemen, religion, temptation

14 likes

#6

“Sometimes people are beautiful.
Not in looks.
Not in what they say.
Just in what they are.”
― Markus Zusak, I Am the Messenger

tags: beauty, life

24266 likes

#7

“I would like my life to be a statement of love and compassion--and where it isn't, that's where my work lies.”
― ram dass

354 likes

#8

“The most important aspect of love is not in giving or the receiving: it's in the being. When I need love from others, or need to give love to others, I'm caught in an unstable situation. Being in love, rather than giving or taking love, is the only thing that provides stability. Being in love means seeing the Beloved all around me.”
― ram dass

238 likes

#9

“Technique has taken over the whole of civilization. Death, procreation, birth all submit to technical efficiency and systemization.”
― Jacques Ellul

tags: dystopia, technique

55 likes

#10

“That's why I write, because life never works except in retrospect. You can't control life, at least you can control your version.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Stranger than Fiction

tags: writing-life

796 likes

#11

“If you are destined to become a writer, you can't help it. If you can help it, you aren't destined to become a writer. The frustrations and disappointments, not even to mention the unspeakable loneliness, are too unbearable for anyone who doesn't have a deep sense of being unable to avoid writing.”
― Donald Harington

49 likes

#12

“To say that a writer's hold on reality is tenuous is an understatement-it's like saying the Titanic had a rough crossing. Writer's build their own realities, move into them and occasionally send letters home. The only difference between a writer and a crazy person is that a writer gets paid for it.”
― David Gerrold

tags: authors, the-martian-child, writers, writing, writing-life

43 likes

#13

“It is those who are successful, in other words, who are most likely to be given the kinds of special opportunities that lead to further success. It’s the rich who get the biggest tax breaks. It’s the best students who get the best teaching and most attention. And it’s the biggest nine- and ten-year-olds who get the most coaching and practice. Success is the result of what sociologists like to call “accumulative advantage.”
― Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers: The Story of Success

336 likes

#14

“The key to good decision making is not knowledge. It is understanding. We are swimming in the former. We are desperately lacking in the latter.”
― Malcolm Gladwell, Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

744 likes

#15

“The tipping point is that magic moment when an idea, trend, or social behavior crosses a threshold, tips, and spreads like wildfire.”
― Malcolm Gladwell, The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference

tags: idea, setting-trends, social-behavior

236 likes

#16

“I never change, I simply become more myself.”
― Joyce Carol Oates, Solstice

4084 likes

#17

“I wanted a perfect ending. Now I've learned, the hard way, that some poems don't rhyme, and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next.
Delicious Ambiguity.”
― Gilda Radner

tags: ambiguity, life, stories, uncertainty, unpredictability

9981 likes

#18

“When in doubt, be ridiculous.”
― Sherwood Smith, Firebirds: An Anthology of Original Fantasy and Science Fiction

tags: beauty, decision, fast-thinking, uncertainty

218 likes

#19

“Maturity, one discovers, has everything to do with the acceptance of ‘not knowing.”
― Mark Z. Danielewski, House of Leaves

tags: acceptance, maturity, uncertainty

665 likes

#20

“I can live with doubt and uncertainty and not knowing. I think it is much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers that might be wrong. If we will only allow that, as we progress, we remain unsure, we will leave opportunities for alternatives. We will not become enthusiastic for the fact, the knowledge, the absolute truth of the day, but remain always uncertain … In order to make progress, one must leave the door to the unknown ajar.”
― Richard P. Feynman

tags: uncertainty

293 likes

#21

“As human beings, not only do we seek resolution, but we also feel that we deserve resolution. However, not only do we not deserve resolution, we suffer from resolution. We don't deserve resolution; we deserve something better than that. We deserve our birthright, which is the middle way, an open state of mind that can relax with paradox and ambiguity.”
― Pema Chödrön, When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times

tags: buddhism, uncertainty

289 likes

#22

“Embrace relational uncertainty. It's called romance. Embrace spiritual uncertainty. It's called mystery. Embrace occupational uncertainty. It's called destiny. Embrace emotional uncertainty. It's called joy. Embrace intellectual uncertainty. It's called revelation.”
― Mark Batterson, In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day: How to Survive and Thrive When Opportunity Roars

tags: joy, life, romance, uncertainty

102 likes

#23

“So what do we do? Anything. Something. So long as we just don't sit there. If we screw it up, start over. Try something else. If we wait until we've satisfied all the uncertainties, it may be too late. - Lee Iacocca”
― Lee Iacocca

tags: starting-over, uncertainty

146 likes

#24

“Uncertainty is a quality to be cherished, therefore – if not for it, who would dare to undertake anything?”
― Auguste de Villiers de L'Isle-Adam

tags: creativity, uncertainty

37 likes

#25

“Let go of certainty. The opposite isn't uncertainty. It's openness, curiosity and a willingness to embrace paradox, rather than choose up sides. The ultimate challenge is to accept ourselves exactly as we are, but never stop trying to learn and grow.”
― Tony Schwartz

tags: acceptance, certainty, curiosity, growing, learning, letting-go, openness, paradox, uncertainty

410 likes

#26

“Technology tends toward avoidance of risks by investors. Uncertainty is ruled out if possible. People generally prefer the predictable. Few recognize how destructive this can be, how it imposes severe limits on variability and thus makes whole populations fatally vulnerable to the shocking ways our universe can throw the dice.”
― Frank Herbert, Heretics of Dune

tags: chance, technology, uncertainty

36 likes

#27

“Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day. You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson

tags: life, regrets

18617 likes

#28

“All I have seen teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not seen.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson

tags: belief, experience, faith, judging-from-experience, religion, unseen

2899 likes