Laura

“And here lies the essential difference between Stoicism and the modern-day 'cult of optimism.' For the Stoics, the ideal state of mind was tranquility, not the excitable cheer that positive thinkers usually seem to mean when they use the word, 'happiness.' And tranquility was to be achieved not by strenuously chasing after enjoyable experiences, but by cultivating a kind of calm indifference towards one's circumstances.”
― Oliver Burkeman, The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking

“And here lies the essential between Stoicism and the modern-day 'cult of optimism.' For the Stoics, the ideal state of mind was tranquility, not the excitable cheer that positive thinkers usually seem to mean when they use the word, 'happiness.' And tranquility was to be achieved not by strenuously chasing after enjoyable experiences, but by cultivating a kind of calm indifference towards one's circumstances.”
― Oliver Burkeman, The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking

“Amy ran on sugar, caffeine, and pain pills, and would sacrifice an entire night of sleep to level up a character in one of her games. The people with health insurance get antidepressants and Adderall, the rich get cocaine, the clean-living Christians settle for mug after mug of coffee and all-you-can-eat buffets. The reality is that society had gotten too fast, noisy, and stressful for the human brain to process and everybody was ingesting something to either keep up or dull the shame of falling behind. For those few who truly live clean, well, it’s the self-righteousness that gets them high.”
― David Wong, What the Hell Did I Just Read

“To move my audiences to action, I’d need to ignite their passion, and to do that I had to put them inside the experience I was offering, not just the business plan. The keys to the kingdom weren’t and never could be purely informational.”
― Peter Guber, Tell to Win: Connect, Persuade, and Triumph with the Hidden Power of Story