Choice Wisdom from Superheros and Sages
The greatest use of a life is to spend it on something that will outlast it. ~William James
When we are dead, and people weep for us and grieve, let it be because we touched their lives with beauty and simplicity. Let it not be said that life was good to us, but rather, that we were good to life. ~Jacob Rudin
I feel that the attitude “work is a means to an end, which you have to put up with to get to the fun in life” is pathological. I think it results in no end of harm. The philosopher David Hume had a motto which was “work is its own reward.” If this thought is just meant to express the Protestant work ethic gone mad, then I think it is awful. But if it means we should do the work which is of itself fulfilling and meaningful then I think it is right. If people the world over stopped doing the work they didn’t believe in there would be no arms trade, more equality, and greater well-being for everyone. ~Robert Poynton
Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful. ~Albert Schweitzer
The greatest gift you can give the world is that of your own transformation. ~Lao Tzu
I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve (or save) the world and a desire to enjoy (or savor) the world. This makes it hard to plan the day. ~E.B. White
Don’t ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and then go do that. For what the world needs is more people who have come alive. ~Reverend Howard Thurman, civil rights activist and mentor to Martin Luther King, Jr.
Who among us hasn’t noticed it – the strange doubling of forms and faces – the echo in the world? The waves in rock, the veins in leaves, the ghostly flowerings of frost. As though god, deep in his labors, had suddenly run out of ideas, or, perhaps, surprised by the lonliness of his creation, had set out, in the eleventh hour, to stitch the world together: the sound of wind to the sound of water, the ruffling of field to the ruffling of fur, the memories of the living to the hopes of the dead. A familiar universe. A sea of small recognitions. A vast brotherhood of thoughts and things. ~Mark Slouka
