#activity

know what you want, work to get it, then value it once you have it. ↗

— Nora Roberts

#inspirational #proactivity #inspirational

Activity and rest are two vital aspects of life. To find a balance in them is a skill in itself. Wisdom is knowing when to have rest, when to have activity, and how much of each to have. Finding them in each other - activity in rest and rest in activity - is the ultimate freedom. ↗

— Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

#rest #freedom

Legislation that names a specific private organization to defund (rather than all organizations that engage in a particular activity) is improper and arguably unconstitutional. ↗

— Justin Amash

#arguably #engage #improper #legislation #names

Here we must take account of one of St. Thomas's conceptual distinctions, which at first seems like unnecessary caviling. It is the distinction between "uncreated" and "created" happiness. We have here something which, while not at all obvious, is nevertheless fraught with consequences for our whole feeling about life. Namely, this: what does indeed make us happy is the infinite and uncreated richness of God; but participation in this, happiness itself, is entirely a "creatural" reality governed from within by our humanity; it is not something that descends overwhelmingly upon us from outside. That is, it is not only something that happens to us; we ourselves are intensely active participants in our own happiness. Beatitude - Thomas is saying - cannot possibly be conceived as a merely objective condition of sheer existence. It is not a mere quality, not pure passivity, not simply a feeling. It is something that takes place in the alert core of the mind... Happiness is an act and an activity of the soul. ↗

— Josef Pieper

#aquinas #beatitude #god #happiness #st-thomas

Enttäuschung und Frustration werden [...] alle erleben, die sich wie im Märchen danach sehnen, Glück in einem Schlaraffenland zu finden ... Nur, dass unser Schlaraffenland nicht ein großer Berg von süßem Brei ist ... wir haben andere Fantasien und Bilder von Fülle und Erfülltheit in einem imaginären Schlaraffenland, das nur eben unglücklicherweise niemals dort ist, wo wir tatsächlich leben. Vielmehr leben wir mit der Hoffnung auf ein Glück, das uns das Schicksal irgenwann einmal gewähren müsse. [...] So können wir das Schlaraffenland je nach unserer eigenen Fasson ausgestalten - und wir tun es. Privat und auch gesellschaftlich. Doch sobald wir anfangen, uns mit diesem Glücksmodell anzufreunden, und gespannt darauf warten, wie im Lotto das große Los zu ziehen, werden wir auf einem Weg sein, wo das Glück ganz bestimmt nicht zu uns findet! Wir bleiben hungrig und ungesättigt. Denn geheimnisvollerweise ist das Glück dort, wo wir Bezogenheit leben - selbst in dem unspektatulärsten Tun des Alltags. ↗

— Joachim Gauck

#conduct-of-life #desires #greed #happiness #laziness

I also think he is given to disguises...Sometimes he wears spectacles and sometimes he does not. And twice he has worn an extremely peculiar hat. Inside. ↗

— Julia Quinn

#hat #spying #suspicious #london

To make an activity joyful, keep adding things until the activity as a whole becomes more appealing than repulsing. ↗

— Martha Beck

#adding #appealing #becomes #joyful #keep

A total abstainer is one who abstains from everything but abstention, and especially from inactivity in the affairs of others. ↗

— Ambrose Bierce

#affairs #especially #everything #inactivity #others

Dissent is the native activity of the scientist, and it has got him into a good deal of trouble in the last years. But if that is cut off, what is left will not be a scientist. And I doubt whether it will be a man. ↗

— Jacob Bronowski

#be a man #cut #deal #dissent #doubt

Human nature is evil, and goodness is caused by intentional activity. ↗

— Xun Zi

#caused #evil #goodness #human #human nature