I’m pondering.

A society grows great when old men plant trees the shade of which they know they will never sit in. Good people do things for other people. That’s it. The end.

Greek proverb · After Life

The good man is the man who, no matter how morally unworthy he has been, is moving to become better.

John Dewey

“What was the biggest lie you were told?It’s not that simple… — It’s a lie they tell you over and over and over again; it’s how they get you to give up. If you just do the thing they told you, you can’t. It’s done. And you realize it is that simple… and it always was.”

Bleed for This (2016)

If you’re going to try, go all the way… It will be better than anything else you can imagine. If you’re going to try, go all the way. There is no other feeling like that. You will be alone with the gods, and the nights will flame with fire. You will ride life straight to perfect laughter. It’s the only good fight there is.

Charles Bukowski

In truth we are responsible to all for all. It’s only that humankind doesn’t know it. If we knew it, the world would be paradise at once.

Fyodor Dostoevsky

I do wanna make everything good, but… I also just want to make it, you know?

Savannah Brown

The good earth is rich and can provide for everyone. The way of life can be free and beautiful, but we have lost the way… The Kingdom of God is within man — not one man nor a group of men, but in all men! In you! You, the people, have the power — the power to create machines. The power to create happiness! You, the people, have the power to make this life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure.

Charlie Chaplin

Happiness is amazing. It’s so amazing it doesn’t matter if it’s yours or not.

After Life

Wonder is that possession of the mind that enchants the emotions while never surrendering reason.

Ravi Zacharias

Wealth creation is an evolutionarily recent positive-sum game. Status is an old zero-sum game. Those attacking wealth creation are often just seeking status.

Naval Ravikant

Everything worth having requires sacrifice.

Lex Fridman

One person can change the world. That person can be you.

Lex Fridman

I need nothing from you, but I want everything in the world for you — and I’m here to help.

Unknown

Don’t tell me the sky is the limit while there are footprints on the moon.

Unknown

Only those who are willing to risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.

ET, the Hip Hop Preacher

A calm mind, a fit body, and a house full of love. These things cannot be bought — they must be earned.

Naval Ravikant

The wound is the place light enters you.

Unknown

Civilization is in a race between education and catastrophe. Let us learn the truth and spread it as far and wide as allowed.

H. G. Wells

We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.

Plato

“Are you like a crazy person?” — Evey“I’m quite sure some will say so.” — V

V for Vendetta (2005)

All that matters, and all that ever matters, is right now — the mindset and decisions we make about how to spend this present moment.

Unknown

I started to believe that the proper route forward for the redemption of the individual — and for mankind as a whole — is as a consequence of the redemption of each individual. That occurs as a consequence of adherence to the truth and courage in the face of being. To do more than your best. Your best isn’t enough, because your best isn’t as good as you can be. You have to push past that. And that’s where you find what you need in life — the meaning that sustains you, and the patterns of action that redeem the world, both at the same time. You decide to believe. It’s a risk, an act of faith. You believe that the truth can set you free. You believe people have an intrinsic divinity about their soul. You decide to let everything about you that isn’t worthy of that goal die. That might be almost everything that you are. That’s a terrible thing to contemplate. The only thing that is worse is the alternative

Jordan B. Peterson

A true thing, poorly expressed, is a lie.

Stephen Fry

The World is the Story.

Like Stories of Old

All the benefits in life come from compound interest — relationships, money, habits — anything of importance.

Naval Ravikant

I was made to be tested and twisted,
I was made to be broken and beat…
I have stood in the flames that cremated my brain
and I didn’t once flinch or shake.
So cower at the man I’ve become
when I sing from the top of my lungs
that I won’t retire, I’ll stand in your fire,
inspire the weak to be strong.

Ren

Play long term games with long term people.

Naval Ravikant

The chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken.

Bertrand Russell

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly.

Theodore Roosevelt

Do not go gentle into that good night… Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Dylan Thomas

If I quit now, I will soon be back where I started. And when I started, I was desperately wishing to be where I am.

Unknown

I don’t care about the outcome if we both jump in the deep.

Far Out

The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.

Mahatma Gandhi

Give me a lever long enough and a place to stand, and I will move the earth.

Archimedes

You can’t wait until life isn’t hard anymore before you decide to be happy.

Unknown

Water created man to carry itself uphill.

Unknown

If God wanted man to become a spacefaring species, He would have given man a moon.

Krafft Ehricke

Reach high, for stars lie hidden within you. Dream deep, for every dream precedes the goal.

Rabindranath Tagore

Aim for good and pray for happiness.

Jordan B. Peterson

I could write my magnum opus, or I could simply go to bed.

Savannah Brown

Education is not the filling of buckets but the lighting of flames.

Unknown

I know of no better life purpose than to perish in attempting the great and the impossible.

Friedrich Nietzsche

I’m taking a break from my mental health to focus on my work.

Unknown