Shaun Ling > Shaun's Quotes

“It always seems impossible until it's done.”
― Nelson Mandela

“But you are the average of the five people you associate with most, so do not underestimate the effects of your pessimistic, unambitious, or disorganized friends. If someone isn't making you stronger, they're making you weaker.”
― Timothy Ferriss, The 4-Hour Workweek

“Genius is what a man invents when he is looking for a way out.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre

“The vision of a champion is bent over, drenched in sweat, at the point of exhaustion, when nobody else is looking.”
― Mia Hamm

“I have been impressed with the urgency of doing. Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Being willing is not enough; we must do.”
― Leonardo da Vinci

“There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And an outstanding reason for choosing some sort of God or spiritual-type thing to worship--be it J.C. or Allah, be it Yahweh or the Wiccan mother-goddess or the Four Noble Truths or some infrangible set of ethical principles--is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive.”
― David Foster Wallace

“Doing nothing is better than being busy doing nothing.”
― Lao Tzu

“We learn by example and by direct experience because there are real limits to the adequacy of verbal instruction.”
― Malcolm Gladwell, Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

“If I destroy you, what business is it of yours?”
― Liu Cixin, The Dark Forest

“You have power over your mind - not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win”
― Sun Tzu, The Art of War

“The greatest victory is that which requires no battle.”
― Sun Tzu, The Art of War

“I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by.”
― Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time

“Good friends, good books, and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.”
― Mark Twain

“Those who don't believe in magic will never find it.”
― Roald Dahl

“Because here's something else that's weird but true: in the day-to day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship—be it JC or Allah, be it YHWH or the Wiccan Mother Goddess, or the Four Noble Truths, or some inviolable set of ethical principles—is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough. It's the truth. Worship your body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly. And when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally grieve you. On one level, we all know this stuff already. It's been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, epigrams, parables; the skeleton of every great story. The whole trick is keeping the truth up front in daily consciousness.”
― David Foster Wallace , This Is Water: Some Thoughts, Delivered on a Significant Occasion, about Living a Compassionate Life