Spherical Understanding (Collection of Thoughts)

“It’s not events that upset us but our opinions about them.” – Epictetus

“Make your life an ongoing process of being who you are, at your deepest, most easeful levels of being. Everything other than this process is secondary. Your job, your children, your wife, your money, your artistic creations, your pleasures—they are all superficial and empty, if they are not floating in the deep sea of your conscious being.” – David Deida

“Painful lesson over the past ~20 years of relationships: in the medium run it’s exciting to feel hype about people who seem to relate strongly in specific ways, but in long run it’s really how you handle misunderstandings, conflict, confusion, disagreement that go the distance” – Visakan Veerasamy

“If we understood the power of our thoughts, we would guard them more closely. If we understood the awesome power of our words, we would prefer silence to almost anything negative. In our thoughts and words we create our own weaknesses and our own strengths. Our limitations and joys begin in our hearts. We can always replace negative with positive.” – Betty Eadie

“One who looks outside, dreams. One who looks inside, awakens.” – Carl Jung

“The only real test of intelligence is if you get what you want out of life.” – Naval Ravikant

“Fear is good. Like self-doubt, fear is an indicator. Fear tells us what we have to do. Remember our rule of thumb: The more scared we are of a work or calling, the more sure we can be that we have to do it.” – Steven Pressfield

“Today is the most important day of our lives.” – Thich Nhat Hanh

“Never limit yourself because of others’ limited imagination; never limit others because of your own limited imagination.” – Mae C. Jemison

“The important thing isn’t to achieve all your dreams, but to keep dreaming. Your desires change as you learn and grow. Old dreams will spawn new dreams. And eventually, one of these newer, more refined visions will find their moment and become reality.” – James Clear

“If one only wished to be happy, this could be easily accomplished; but we wish to be happier than other people, and this is always difficult, for we believe others to be happier than they are.” – Montesquieu

“A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.” – William James

“Imperfection is not our personal problem — it is a natural part of existing.” – Tara Brach

“You cannot get educated by this self-propagating system in which people study to pass exams, and teach others to pass exams, but nobody knows anything. You learn something by doing it yourself, by asking questions, by thinking, and by experimenting.” – Richard Feynman

“There are three classes of men; lovers of wisdom, lovers of honor, and lovers of gain.” – Plato

“Most successful people are people you’ve never heard of. They want it that way. It keeps them sober. It helps them do their jobs.” – Ryan Holiday

“Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.” – Marcus Aurelius

“Human behavior flows from three main sources: desire, emotion, and knowledge.” – Plato

“What would it be like if I could accept life — accept this moment — exactly as it is?” – Tara Brach

“Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it.” – Eckhart Tolle

“The culture we have does not make people feel good about themselves. And you have to be strong enough to say if the culture doesn’t work, don’t buy it.” – Morrie Schwartz

“Half of the people lie with their lips; the other half with their tears.” – Nassim Nicholas Taleb

“We suffer by wanting different things often at odds with one another, but we suffer even more by wanting to want different things.” – Maria Popova

“Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.” – Marcus Aurelius

“Never forget, within every obstacle is an opportunity to improve our condition.” – Ryan Holiday

“Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.” – Lao Tzu

“The boundary to what we can accept is the boundary to our freedom.” – Tara Brach

“If you need to conceal your true nature to get in the door, understand that you’ll probably have to conceal your true nature to keep that job.” – Seth Godin

“Who you are is defined by what you’re willing to struggle for.” – Mark Manson

“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a harder battle.” – Plato

“The difference between technology and slavery is that they are not free.” – Nassim Nicholas Taleb

“If you’ve found meaning in your life, you don’t want to go back. You want to go forward.” – Morrie Schwartz

“The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.” – Marcus Aurelius

“The primary cause of unhappiness is never the situation but your thoughts about it.” – Eckhart Tolle

“Learn to enjoy every minute of your life. Be happy now. Don’t wait for something outside of yourself to make you happy in the future.” – Earl Nightingale

“Most people don’t know why they’re doing what they’re doing. They imitate others, go with the flow, and follow paths without making their own.” – Derek Sivers

“Guilt is the flip side of prestige and they’re both horrible reasons to do something.” – Maria Popava

“The desire for more positive experience is itself a negative experience. And, paradoxically, the acceptance of one’s negative experience is itself a positive experience.” – Mark Manson

“Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws.” – Plato

“Heroes are heroes because they are heroic in behavior, not because they won or lost.” – Nassim Nicholas Taleb

“Impressing people is utterly different from being truly impressive.” – Ryan Holiday

“I am driven by the yearning to learn how to live; how to lead a meaningful life; the fear of not having yet learned how to die.” – Maria Popova

“Your art is what you do when no one can tell you exactly how to do it. Your art is the act of taking personal responsibility, challenging the status quo, and changing people.” – Seth Godin

“Never discourage anyone… who continually makes progress, no matter how slow..” – Plato

“The three most harmful addictions are heroin, carbohydrates, and a monthly salary.” – Nassim Nicholas Taleb

“Life is essentially an endless series of problems. The solution to one problem is merely the creation of another.” – Mark Manson

“Instead of wondering when your next vacation is, maybe you should set up a life you don’t need to escape from.” – Seth Godin

“How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.” – Annie Dilliard

“Do the difficult things while they are easy and do the great things while they are small. A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.” – Lao Tzu

“The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.” – F. Scott Fitzgerald

“If you believe that you have something special inside of you, and you feel it’s about time you gave it a shot, honor that calling in some small way today.” – Elle Luna

“The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.” -Mark Twain

“When we get something, we assume that the world owes it to us. If you’re present, you’ll realize how many gifts and how much abundance there is around us at all times. That’s all you really need to do. I’m here now, and I have all these incredible things at my disposal. You’re going to die one day and none of this is going to matter. So enjoy yourself. Do something positive. Project some love. Make someone happy. Laugh a little bit. Appreciate the moment. And do your work.”  – Naval Ravikant

“Everybody on the planet shares one thing in common: we’re all going to die, some sooner, some later, some in the next minute or the next hour. As you get a little bit older, you realize that the end is near. And you start to prepare yourself for that. You start to become at peace with that. You just realize that all this human suffering and human striving is basically pretty meaningless. The true goal should be elevated spiritual consciousness, the part of you that never dies.” – Steve Maxwell

“The modern world is a gift. It gives us tools and choices, but we need the self-discipline and wisdom to choose wisely.” – Naval Ravikant

“It’s not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.” – Epictetus

“You never know what will be the consequence of the misfortune; or, you never know what will be the consequences of good fortune.” – Alan Watts

“This is your annual reminder that you don’t need to resolve your issues, you don’t need to deal with your emotional baggage, you don’t need to process your trauma, you don’t need to confront your past, you don’t need to figure yourself out, you can just go ahead and do the thing.” – Eliezer Yudkowsky