In a world that is constantly changing, there is no one subject or set of subjects that will serve you for the foreseeable future, let alone for the rest of your life. The most important skill to acquire now is learning how to learn.
I’m vegan, though not completely religious about it. While writing ‘Sapiens,’ I became familiar with how we treat animals in the meat and dairy industries. I was so horrified that I didn’t want to be a part of it anymore.
For me, forgiveness and compassion are always linked: how do we hold people accountable for wrongdoing and yet at the same time remain in touch with their humanity enough to believe in their capacity to be transformed?
Fashion should be genderless; how people perceive the idea of beauty can vary from one to another.
There’s a finite amount of time on this planet for each of us. Sometimes, the only way we figure out how to deal with that reality – knowing that there will be an end to every story, and you don’t know how many chapters are left in your book – is by living in denial.
In order to have great happiness you have to have great pain and unhappiness – otherwise how would you know when you’re happy?
I have been up against tough competition all my life. I wouldn’t know how to get along without it.
One thing is sure. We have to do something. We have to do the best we know how at the moment… If it doesn’t turn out right, we can modify it as we go along.
Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen.
Too bad that all the people who know how to run the country are busy driving taxicabs and cutting hair.
Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism – how passionately I hate them!
The size of your success is measured by the strength of your desire; the size of your dream; and how you handle disappointment along the way.
The turning point was when I hit my 30th birthday. I thought, if really want to write, it’s time to start. I picked up the book How to Write a Novel in 90 Days. The author said to just write three pages a day, and I figured, I can do this. I never got past Page 3 of that book.
You see, it’s never the environment; it’s never the events of our lives, but the meaning we attach to the events – how we interpret them – that shapes who we are today and who we’ll become tomorrow.
Many people feel so pressured by the expectations of others that it causes them to be frustrated, miserable and confused about what they should do. But there is a way to live a simple, joy-filled, peaceful life, and the key is learning how to be led by the Holy Spirit, not the traditions or expectations of man.
How can a woman be expected to be happy with a man who insists on treating her as if she were a perfectly normal human being.
Nobody has ever measured, not even poets, how much the heart can hold.
One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got into my pajamas I’ll never know.
When someone is impatient and says, ‘I haven’t got all day,’ I always wonder, How can that be? How can you not have all day?
I know that I’m not the easiest person to live with. The challenge I put on myself is so great that the person I live with feels himself challenged. I bring a lot to bear, and I don’t know how not to.
I dress how I feel. I just go off emotion. I can’t prepare my outfit a day before. Everything I wear is spontaneous.
It doesn’t matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn’t matter how smart you are. If it doesn’t agree with experiment, it’s wrong.
I’m interested in internationalism. It’s the new multiculturalism. How we deal with each other isn’t sufficient any more. It’s about time we examine how we interact with the rest of the world we live in.
One we discover how to appreciate the timeless values in our daily experiences, we can enjoy the best things in life.
Success must never be measured by how much money you have.
Remember that a gesture of friendship, no matter how small, is always appreciated.
There’s always a ying-yang in life. With everybody. There’s evil in all of us. It’s just about how you balance out the evil and the good and having faith in yourself and how you carry yourself.
The value of life is not in its duration, but in its donation. You are not important because of how long you live, you are important because of how effective you live.
When you start to realise how much of what you’ve constructed of yourself is based on deception and lies, that is a horrifying realisation.
In the final analysis, the questions of why bad things happen to good people transmutes itself into some very different questions, no longer asking why something happened, but asking how we will respond, what we intend to do now that it happened.
Do you not see how necessary a world of pains and troubles is to school an intelligence and make it a soul?
As is a tale, so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters.
Life is full of confusion. Confusion of love, passion, and romance. Confusion of family and friends. Confusion with life itself. What path we take, what turns we make. How we roll our dice.
We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence. See how nature – trees, flowers, grass- grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence… We need silence to be able to touch souls.
A man who becomes conscious of the responsibility he bears toward a human being who affectionately waits for him, or to an unfinished work, will never be able to throw away his life. He knows the ‘why’ for his existence, and will be able to bear almost any ‘how.’
What really matters is how God sees me. He isn’t concerned with labels; he is concerned about the state of man’s soul.
Donald Trump – and I don’t dislike Donald one single bit – has no idea how good the Mexican people are at building tunnels.
Each Warrior wants to leave the mark of his will, his signature, on important acts he touches. This is not the voice of ego but of the human spirit, rising up and declaring that it has something to contribute to the solution of the hardest problems, no matter how vexing!
Consciously or not, we are all on a quest for answers, trying to learn the lessons of life. We grapple with fear and guilt. We search for meaning, love, and power. We try to understand fear, loss, and time. We seek to discover who we are and how we can become truly happy.
I have seen how effective language attached to policies that are mainstream and delivered by people who are passionate and effective can change the course of history.
Technology gives us power, but it does not and cannot tell us how to use that power. Thanks to technology, we can instantly communicate across the world, but it still doesn’t help us know what to say.
It’s impossible to explain creativity. It’s like asking a bird, ‘How do you fly?’ You just do.
It is only when they go wrong that machines remind you how powerful they are.
How can you expect a man who’s warm to understand one who’s cold?
If men knew how women pass the time when they are alone, they’d never marry.
Surround yourself with good people who encourage and love you. There are always ups and downs, no matter how successful you are.
When we make progress and get better at something, it is inherently motivating. In order for people to make progress, they have to get feedback and information on how they’re doing.
Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.
The most important practical lesson that can be given to nurses is to teach them what to observe – how to observe – what symptoms indicate improvement – what the reverse – which are of importance – which are of none – which are the evidence of neglect – and of what kind of neglect.
No matter how civilized we are and how much society has curbed violent behavior. Human beings still have the same genes they had 10,000 years ago. Our bodies are designed to have a certain amount of physical stress and violence in them. We’re designed to run from jaguars and fight to defend our territory.
No one would talk much in society if they knew how often they misunderstood others.
If one could only teach the English how to talk, and the Irish how to listen, society here would be quite civilized.
Omnipotence is not knowing how everything is done; it’s just doing it.
How poor are they that have not patience! What wound did ever heal but by degrees?
The true artist is not proud: he unfortunately sees that art has no limits; he feels darkly how far he is from the goal, and though he may be admired by others, he is sad not to have reached that point to which his better genius only appears as a distant, guiding sun.
I live on a one-way street that’s also a dead end. I’m not sure how I got there.
A revolutionary poem will not tell you who or when to kill, what and when to burn, or even how to theorize. It reminds you… where and when and how you are living and might live, it is a wick of desire.
How oft the sight of means to do ill deeds makes ill deeds done!
