David > David's Quotes

“You can't help what you feel, but you can help how you behave”
― Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale

“Without music, life would be a mistake.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols

“Instead of possibilities, I have realities in my past, not only the reality of work done and of love loved, but of sufferings bravely suffered. These sufferings are even the things of which I am most proud, though these are things which cannot inspire envy.”
― Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning

“Those who have a 'why' to live, can bear with almost any 'how'.”
― Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning

“No man should judge unless he asks himself in absolute honesty whether in a similar situation he might not have done the same.”
― Viktor Emil Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning

“Don't aim at success. The more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side effect of one's personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one's surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it. I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. Then you will live to see that in the long-run—in the long-run, I say!—success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think about it”
― Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning

“The more we try to avoid the basic reality that all human life involves pain, the more we are likely to struggle with that pain when it arises, thereby creating even more suffering.”
― Russ Harris, The Happiness Trap: How to Stop Struggling and Start Living: A Guide to ACT

“A = Accept your thoughts and feelings and be present. C = Connect with your values. T = Take effective action.”
― Russ Harris, The Happiness Trap: How to Stop Struggling and Start Living: A Guide to ACT

“Myth 1: Happiness Is the Natural State for All Human Beings”
― Russ Harris, The Happiness Trap: How to Stop Struggling and Start Living: A Guide to ACT

“We have become a civilization based on work—not even “productive work” but work as an end and meaning in itself.”
― David Graeber, Bullshit Jobs: A Theory

“Life with a cheat code isn't life. Our existence isn't something to be engineered or optimized for the avoidance of pain. That's what it is to be human - the beauty and the pain, each meaningless without the other.”
― Blake Crouch, Recursion

“He has wondered lately if that's all living really is—one long goodbye to those we love.”
― Blake Crouch, Recursion

“No one tells you it's all about to change, to be taken away. There's no proximity alert, no indication that you're standing on the precipice. And maybe that's what makes tragedy so tragic. Not just what happens, but how it happens: a sucker punch that comes at you out of nowhere, when you're least expecting it. No time to flinch or brace.”
― Blake Crouch, Dark Matter

“If you strip away all the trappings of personality and lifestyle, what are the core components that make me me?”
― Blake Crouch, Dark Matter

“The older I get, the less I understand.”
― Blake Crouch, Dark Matter

“Until everything topples, we have no idea what we actually have, how precariously and perfectly it all hangs together.”
― Blake Crouch, Dark Matter

“When you come out of the grips of a depression there is an incredible relief, but not one you feel allowed to celebrate. Instead, the feeling of victory is replaced with anxiety that it will happen again, and with shame and vulnerability when you see how your illness affected your family, your work, everything left untouched while you struggled to survive. We come back to life thinner, paler, weaker … but as survivors. Survivors who don’t get pats on the back from coworkers who congratulate them on making it. Survivors who wake to more work than before because their friends and family are exhausted from helping them fight a battle they may not even understand. I hope to one day see a sea of people all wearing silver ribbons as a sign that they understand the secret battle, and as a celebration of the victories made each day as we individually pull ourselves up out of our foxholes to see our scars heal, and to remember what the sun looks like.”
― Jenny Lawson, Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things

“You should just accept who you are, flaws and all, because if you try to be someone you aren't, then eventually some turkey is going to shit all over your well-crafted facade, so you might as well save yourself the effort and enjoy your zombie books.”
― Jenny Lawson, Let's Pretend This Never Happened: A Mostly True Memoir

“I can’t think of another type of illness where the sufferer is made to feel guilty and question their self-care when their medications need to be changed.”
― Jenny Lawson, Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things

“Don't compare your insides with someone else's outsides.”
― Jenny Lawson, Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things

“Be as visibly fucked up as you want to be because being unique is already taken”
― Jenny Lawson, Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things

“You are defined not by life's imperfect moments, but by your reaction to them.”
― Jenny Lawson, Let's Pretend This Never Happened: A Mostly True Memoir

“You are only entitled to the action, never to its fruits.”
― Bhagavad Gita

“Every time you take in the good, you build a little bit of neural structure. Doing this a few times a day—for months and even years—will gradually change your brain, and how you feel and act, in far-reaching ways.”
― Rick Hanson, Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom

“First darts are unpleasant to be sure. But then we add our reactions to them. These reactions are “second darts”—the ones we throw ourselves. Most of our suffering comes from second darts.”
― Rick Hanson, Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom

“In the simulator, upsetting events from the past play again and again, which unfortunately strengthens the neural associations between an event and its painful feelings.”
― Rick Hanson, Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom

“The brain has a wonderful capacity to simulate experiences, but there´s a price: the simulator pulls you out of the moment, plus it sets you chasing pleasures that aren´t that great and resisting pains that are exaggerated or not even real”
― Rick Hanson & Richard Mendius, Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom

“I can do nothing for you but work on myself...you can do nothing for me but work on yourself!”
― Ram Dass, Be Here Now

“Early in the journey you wonder how long the journey will take and whether you will make it in this lifetime. Later you will see that where you are going is HERE and you will arrive NOW...so you stop asking.”
― Ram Dass, Be Here Now

“Emotions are like waves. Watch them disappear in the distance on the vast calm ocean.”
― Ram Dass, Be Here Now