Ion

“The research literature has identified three factors that universally lead to stress: uncertainty, the lack of information and the loss of control.”
― Gabor Maté, When the Body Says No

“Count your years and you'll be ashamed to be wanting and working for exactly the same things as you wanted when you were a boy. Of this one thing make sure against your dying day - that your faults die before you do. Have done with those unsettled pleasures, which cost one dear - they do one harm after they're past and gone, not merely when they're in prospect. Even when they're over, pleasures of a depraved nature are apt to carry feelings of dissatisfaction, in the same way as a criminal's anxiety doesn't end with the commission of the crime, even if it's undetected at the time. Such pleasures are insubstantial and unreliable; even if they don't do one any harm, they're fleeting in character. Look around for some enduring good instead. And nothing answers this description except what the spirit discovers for itself within itself. A good character is the only guarantee of everlasting, carefree happiness. Even if some obstacle to this comes on the scene, its appearance is only to be compared to that of clouds which drift in front of the sun without ever defeating its light.”
― Seneca, Letters from a Stoic

“It would be tedious to continue piling example upon example, statistic upon statistic. For at a certain point, a feeling of deep lethargy sets in, and our reaction is: 'What's the use?' or 'What can one man possibly do?' If we respond in this manner, we are lost. For it is precisely by shifting problems from the trivial to the tragic plane, by forsaking a personal view for a cosmic one, that we rationalize and manage to shrug off our own personal responsibility.”
― Victor Papanek, Design for the Real World: Human Ecology and Social Change

“Năiță Lucean își dădu seama că el de fapt nu fusese niciodată tânăr și de capul lui și în putere să facă el cum vrea el, căci tinerețea lui se trecuse în război, și copiii veniseră sfoară, unul după altul, și el nu mai avusese când să fie tânăr și să facă el cum i-ar fi trecut lui prin cap și că de fapt niciodată nu se gândise la nimic altceva decât cum să încherbe sărăcia și s-o lege la gură ca să poată dormi și el o noapte fără s-o audă strigându-l să se scoale și să se apuce de treabă.”
― Dinu Săraru, Niște țărani