Some Quotes for March 2025 (#35)
C.S. Lewis, Donald Kingsbury, Sharon Olds, Sally Rooney, Henrik Karlsson, George Bernard Shaw, Terry Pratchett, Sasha Chapin, Justin Welsh, Mo Rocca
Link = source I've actually read/endorse. No link = random, out-of-context snippet I stumbled on, usually online. (Some of these are advice—others I just enjoy the language or sentiment.)
If we let ourselves, we shall always be waiting for some distraction or other to end before we can really get down to our work. The only people who achieve much are those who want knowledge so badly that they seek it while the conditions are still unfavorable. Favorable conditions never come. –C.S. Lewis
Tradition is a set of solutions for which we have forgotten the problems. Throw away the solution, and you get the problem back. –Donald Kingsbury
I was a late bloomer. But anyone who blooms at all, ever, is very lucky. –Sharon Olds
From Beautiful World, Where Are You?: What if the meaning of life on earth is not eternal progress toward some unspecified goal—the engineering and production of more and more powerful technologies, the development of more and more complex and abstruse cultural forms? What if these things just rise and recede naturally, like tides, while the meaning of life remains the same always—just to live and be with other people? –Sally Rooney
The world you want to enter does not extend invitations. It recognizes only those who have already crossed over. –
We learn from experience that we don’t learn from experience. –George Bernard Shaw
Always remember that the crowd that applauds your coronation is the same crowd that will applaud your beheading. People like a show. –Terry Pratchett
From “As Sweet as Razor Blade Honey”: Occasionally, meditators use the ocean as a symbol of the absorptive power of awareness, the way that consciousness can enfold even the most jagged sensations. I like it, but not because the ocean is spotless. The ocean contains bones and garbage. It’s a gallery of heavy metals, a zoo for many-clawed slime creatures. In parts, it is unclean, hostile, corrupt. But its embrace of all the poisons is entirely pure. –
Modern luxury is the ability to think clearly, sleep deeply, move slowly, and live quietly in a world designed to prevent all four. – Justin Welsh
I can’t be everything to everyone. Send me your specs. –Mo Rocca