Hon Ollirom > Hon's Quotes

“Mr. Franz, I think careers are a 20th century invention and I don't want one.”
― Jon Krakauer, Into the Wild

“We like companionship, see, but we can't stand to be around people for very long. So we go get ourselves lost, come back for a while, then get the hell out again.”
― Jon Krakauer, Into the Wild

“Mr. Franz, I think careers are a 20th Century invention and I don't want one. You don’t need to worry about me; I have a college education. I’m not destitute. I'm living like this by choice.”
― Jon Krakauer, Into the Wild

“Love all, trust a few,
Do wrong to none: be able for thine enemy
Rather in power than use; and keep thy friend
Under thy own life's key: be check'd for silence,
But never tax'd for speech.”
― William Shakespeare, All's Well That Ends Well

“I'd like to live as a poor man with lots of money.”
― Pablo Picasso

“So many books, so little time.”
― Frank Zappa

“To win true freeedom you must be a slave to philosophy.”
― Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Letters from a Stoic

“Withdraw into yourself, as far as you can. Associate with those who will make a better man of you. Welcome those whom you yourself can improve. The process is mutual; for men learn while they teach.”
― Seneca, Letters from a Stoic

“We should use our reasoning ability to overcome negative emotions. We should also use our reasoning ability to master our desires, to the extent that it is possible to do so. In particular, we should use reason to convince ourselves that things such as fame and fortune aren’t worth having—not, at any rate, if what we seek is tranquility—and therefore aren’t worth pursuing. Likewise, we should use our reasoning ability to convince ourselves that even though certain activities are pleasurable, engaging in those activities will disrupt our tranquility, and the tranquility lost will outweigh the pleasure gained. •”
― William B. Irvine, A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy

“We are social creatures; we will be miserable if we try to cut off contact with other people. Therefore, if what we seek is tranquility, we should form and maintain relations with others. In doing so, though, we should be careful about whom we befriend. We should also, to the extent possible, avoid people whose values are corrupt, for fear that their values will contaminate ours. •”
― William B. Irvine, A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy

“God has entrusted me with myself. No man is free who is not master of himself. A man should so live that his happiness shall depend as little as possible on external things. The world turns aside to let any man pass who knows where he is going.”
― Epictetus

“Events do not just happen, but arrive by appointment.”
― Epictetus

“Men are disturbed not by the things which happen, but by the opinion about the things.”
― Epictetus, Enchiridion and Selections from the Discourses

“pay attention to your enemies, for they are the first to discover your mistakes.”
― William B. Irvine, A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy

“By contemplating the impermanence of everything in the world, we are forced to recognize that every time we do something could be the last time we do it, and this recognition can invest the things we do with a significance and intensity that would otherwise be absent.”
― William B. Irvine, A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy

“According to psychologists Daniel Gilbert and Timothy Wilson, we have an unfortunate tendency to “miswant”—to want things that we won’t like once we get them. “In a perfect world,” they observe, “wanting would cause trying, trying would cause getting, [and] getting would cause liking.”20 But ours is not a perfect world. In particular, our predictions about what we will like tend to be mistaken, and as a result, we tend to want things that, when we get them, will make little difference to our level of happiness. (The”
― William B. Irvine, On Desire: Why We Want What We Want

“The Stoics believed in social reform, but they also believed in personal transformation. More precisely, they thought the first step in transforming a society into one in which people live a good life is to teach people how to make their happiness depend as little as possible on their external circumstances. The second step in transforming a society is to change people’s external circumstances. The Stoics would add that if we fail to transform ourselves, then no matter how much we transform the society in which we live, we are unlikely to have a good life.”
― William B. Irvine, A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy

“Psychologist Robert Zajonc takes this claim one step further: “For most decisions, it is extremely difficult to demonstrate that there has actually been any prior cognitive process whatsoever.”28 It isn’t that the decisions people make are irrational; it’s that the process by which decisions are made are utterly unlike the step-by-step rational process that might be used to solve, say, a math problem. Decisions are typically made in the unconscious mind, by means of some unknown process. Indeed,”
― William B. Irvine, On Desire: Why We Want What We Want

“Psychologist Arthur S. Reber offers the following summary of the psychological research on decision making: “During the 1970s . . . it became increasingly apparent that people do not typically solve problems, make decisions, or reach conclusions using the kinds of standard, conscious, and rational processes that they were more-or-less assumed to be using.” To the contrary, people could best be described, in much of their decision making, as being “arational”: “When people were observed making choices and solving problems of interesting complexity, the rational and logical elements were often missing.”
― William B. Irvine, On Desire: Why We Want What We Want

“The problem is that “bad men obey their lusts as servants obey their masters,” and because they cannot control their desires, they can never find contentment.4”
― William B. Irvine, A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy

“Stoicism, understood properly, is a cure for a disease. The disease in question is the anxiety, grief, fear, and various other negative emotions that plague humans and prevent them from experiencing a joyful existence. By practicing Stoic techniques, we can cure the disease and thereby gain tranquility.”
― William B. Irvine, A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy

“It is, after all, hard to know what to choose when you aren’t really sure what you want.”
― William B. Irvine, A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy

“We need, in other words, to learn how to enjoy things without feeling entitled to them and without clinging to them.”
― William B. Irvine, A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy

“How, after all, can we convince ourselves to want the things we already have? THE STOICS THOUGHT they had an answer to this question.”
― William B. Irvine, A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy

“After expressing his appreciation that his glass is half full rather than being completely empty, he will go on to express his delight in even having a glass: It could, after all, have been broken or stolen.”
― William B. Irvine, A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy

“To sell your soul is the easiest thing in the world. That's what everybody does every hour of his life. If I asked you to keep your soul - would you understand why that's much harder?”
― Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead

“If you can't enjoy what you have, you can't enjoy more of it.”
― Richard Bandler

“No shepherd and one herd! Everybody wants the same, everybody is the same: whoever feels different goes voluntarily into a madhouse.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra

“What is a rebel? A man who says no.”
― Albert Camus

“Procrastination is not the problem. It is the solution. It is the universe's way of saying stop, slow down, you move too fast. Listen to the music. Whoa whoa, listen to the music. Because music makes the people come together, it makes the bourgeois and the rebel. So come on people now, smile on your brother, everybody try to love one another. Because what the world needs now is love, sweet love. And I know that love is a battlefield, but boogie on reggae woman because you're gonna make it after all. So celebrate good times, come on. I've gotta stop I've gotta come to my senses, I've been out riding fences for so long... oops I did it again... um... What I'm trying to say is, if you leave tonight and you don't remember anything else that I've said, leave here and remember this: Procrastinate now, don't put it off. ”
― Ellen DeGeneres