When you run on the earth and with the earth, you will run forever
Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming “Wow! What a Ride!"
Enlightenment is not found on a full stomach or a soft pillow
Ever tried, ever failed, no matter. Try again, fail again, fail better
A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never reads lives only one.
Learn character from trees, values from roots and change from leaves
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then is not an act, but a habit
A couple shouldn’t love each other as they are right now. They should be committed to educating each other and enduring the stormy passages it inevitably involves.
Water does not resist. Water flows. When you plunge your hand into it, all you feel is a caress. Water is not a solid wall, it will not stop you. But water always goes where it wants to go, and nothing in the end can stand against it. Water is patient. Dripping water wears away a stone. Remember that, my child. Remember you are half water. If you can't go through an obstacle, go around it. Water does.
A well built physique reflects you worked hard for it, no money can buy it. You cannot borrow it, you cannot inherit it, you cannot steal it. You cannot hold onto it without constant work. It shows discipline, it shows self respect, patience, work ethic and passion.
"Inspiration is for amateurs. The rest of us just show up and get to work. If you wait around for the clouds to part and a bolt of lightning to strike you in the brain, you are not going to make an awful lot of work. All the best ideas come out of the process; they come out of the work itself."
"It’s ok if you fall and lose your spark. Just make sure that when you get back up, you rise as the whole damn fire."
Its not about the wins each day but spotting the wins amongst the mountain of visible failures.
“The love of the intellectual Indian for the village community is of course infinite, if not pathetic," wrote Ambedkar. “What is a village but a sink of localism, a den of ignorance, narrow-mindedness and communalism?"
The ultimate touchstone of friendship is not improvement, neither of the other nor of the self, the ultimate touchstone is witness, the privilege of having been seen by someone and the equal privilege of being granted the sight of the essence of another, to have walked with them and to have believed in them, and sometimes just to have accompanied them for however brief a span, on a journey impossible to accomplish alone.
"Sinners often speak the truth. And saints have led people astray. Examine what is said, not the one who says it.”
“All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.”
“The awe it inspired in me made the awe that people talk about in respect of religious experience seem, frankly, silly beside it. I’d take the awe of understanding over the awe of ignorance any day” New Quote
A good teacher can never be fixed in routine. Each moment requires a sensitive mind that is constantly changing and constantly adapting. A teacher must never impose this student to fit his favourite pattern. A good teacher protects his pupils from his own influence. A teacher is never a giver of truth, he is a guide, a pointer to the truth that each student must find for himself. I am not teaching you anything. I just help you to explore yourself
You must be shapeless, formless, like water. When you pour water in a cup, it becomes the cup. When you pour water in a bottle, it becomes the bottle. When you pour water in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Water can drip and it can crash. Become like water my friend.
Hapiness is as exclusive as a butterfly, and you must never pursue it. If you stay very still, it may come and settle on your hand. But only briefly. Savour those moments, for they will not come in your way very often.
The 20s are for discovering how the world works, 30s for figuring out your place in it, and 40s for really getting into the groove.
The art on your paper is the music in your heart
A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.
Friendship is the hardest thing in the world to explain. It's not something you learn in school. But if you haven't learned the meaning of friendship, you really haven't learned anything.
“Dr. King's policy was that nonviolence would achieve the gains for black people in the United States. His major assumption was that if you are nonviolent, if you suffer, your opponent will see your suffering and will be moved to change his heart. That's very good. He only made one fallacious assumption: In order for nonviolence to work, your opponent must have a conscience. The United States has none.”
"Sometimes magic is just someone spending more time on something than anyone else might reasonably expect."
The Grand Canyon was created by little drops of water bouncing off rocks for millenia. Consistent effort over time is one of the greatest forces in the world. Persistence beats focus, inspiration, and genius 90% of the time.
"I suspect that most of the individuals who have religious faith are content with blind faith. They feel no obligation to understand what they believe. They may even wish not to have their beliefs disturbed by thought."
"Every dead body on Mt. Everest was once a highly motivated person, so.... maybe calm down”
“Nationalism does nothing but teach you to hate people you never met, and to take pride in accomplishments you had no part in."
“Good habits have a price. Bad habits have a cost. Either way, you pay.”
“Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won’t either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself that you tasted as many as you could.” New Quote
You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something - your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. Because believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart even when it leads you off the well worn path; and that will make all the difference.
The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.
Comparison is the thief of joy
"To him who has had the experience no explanation is necessary, to him who has not, none is possible."
In the space between stimulus (what happens) and how we respond, lies our freedom to choose. Ultimately, this power to choose is what defines us as human beings. We may have limited choices but we can always choose. Wecan choose our thoughts, emotions, moods, our words, our actions; we can choose our values and live by principles. It is the choice of acting or being acted upon. Taking the time to craft your response when an unexpected event occurs is the opportunity to frame that event as opposed to letting that event frame you
As the bonfire of our knowledge grows, the range of our ignorance is illuminated
It isn’t 10,000 hours that creates outliers, it’s 10,000 iterations.
Its not the depth of the pose that matters, it is the depth of the breath
If you have the choice between being right and being kind, choose being kind
When asked "How to balance life?" My answer is "Difficult pursuits often demand an unbalanced view of the world"
"Blood is thicker than water" is actually the inaccurate version of the saying. The correct version is: "The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb"
As a competitive athlete, you really bond with those you compete against. Even though they all know 'you have to quit for me to win', but when you want to quit, 'I don't want you to go. We've been through hell together'. Its a dichotomy in your mind, that you compete with people - in a good healthy competiton there is an affection that comes from it. Because you have done all this training and all this work to get to this point. And then you go out there and give your best and you empathize with them - 'I know exactly what you're going through because I am going through it too'
“With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil - that takes religion.”
“We go through seasons as runners. If you hold faith through the lows, then you will reach new highs. Soon, nothing can stand in your way. Not even the 100 miles of dirt between you and the finish line.”
I am a mosaic of everyone I have ever known and loved and touched and I find fragments of them in my playlists and how I make my tea. we may not know each other any more but we will stay connected like this. I hope a fragment of me is with you too. New Quote
You tried to help the people of this market. You mostly failed. This is life. The longer you live, the more you fail. Failure is the mark of a life well lived. In turn, the only way to live without failure is to be of no use to anyone.
Love wasn't about being right or wrong, but about standing up and helping when your partner's back was bowed.