Tag: quotes

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Quotes on Exploring the Depths

Yet another from Alan Watts in Cloud-Hidden, Whereabouts Unknown:

A great mind is also considered “profound” because it plumbs the depths of things.

From the introduction to Watts’ The Wisdom of Insecurity:

The strategy Watts follows is not specifically Buddhist but goes back to the most ancient insights of the Vedic seers of India: eliminate what is unreal, and all that remains will be real. It’s a simple but ruthless approach, since there are so many things we accept as real which are in fact merely symbolic: “… thoughts, ideas, and words are ‘coins’ for real things. They are not those things.”

The Secrets of Consulting by Gerald Weinberg:

There’s just no escaping Rudy’s Rutabaga Rule: Once you eliminate your number one problem, number two gets a promotion.

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Three Quotes on Intervention

Chesterton’s Fence: A Lesson in Second Order Thinking:

As simple as Chesterton’s Fence is as a principle, it teaches us an important lesson. Many of the problems we face in life occur when we intervene with systems without an awareness of what the consequences could be.

How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie

She noticed that occasionally he did a particularly good piece of work. She made a point to praise him for it in front of the other people. Each day the job he did all around got better, and pretty soon he started doing all his work efficiently. Now he does an excellent job and other people give him appreciation and recognition. Honest appreciation got results where criticism and ridicule failed.

James Clear, 3-2-1: Paying Attention, Staying Hopeful in Bad Times, and Ten Year Plans:

Many problems are minor when you solve them right away, but grow into an enormous conflict when you let them linger.
As a rule of thumb, fix it now.

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Quotes on Mastery

I was inspired by reading Austin Kleon’s post Two quotes to get this blog going once again. I love my daily Readwise quote reviews (642 day streak so far!). Sharing the quote combinations that strike me each day sounds like a great exercise. To start it off, we have an anchor to “mastery”.

Robert Greene’s The Daily Laws:

Daily Law: You must see your attempt at attaining mastery as something extremely necessary and positive.

Alan Watts, Cloud-Hidden, Whereabouts Unknown:

It is said to be “difficult” to master the art of Chinese writing, but this means only that the art must grow on you over many years. We use the word “difficult” for tasks which require extreme force or effort, and over which we must perspire, grunt, and groan. But the difficulty of writing Chinese with the brush is to make the brush write by itself, and the Taoists call this the art of wu-wei—which may be translated variously as “easy does it,” “roll with the punch,” “go with the stream,” “don’t force it,” or, more literally, “not pushing.”

I can appreciate Watts’ description of Wu Wei from my own ideal when cooking.

Daily Stoic, “If You Want to Be Powerful”:

You could be powerful right now, in your own life, in your own mind…if you decided to seize what was already yours. If you stopped giving your power away.

Relayed by Douglas Harding in The Science of the 1st Person:

ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS: That thou mayest know everything, seek to know nothing.
HUANG-PO: Only have no mind of any kind; this is known as undefiled knowledge.