#heck

Reality is far more vicious than Russian roulette. First, it delivers the fatal bullet rather infrequently, like a revolver that would have hundreds, even thousands of chambers instead of six. After a few dozen tries, one forgets about the existence of a bullet, under a numbing false sense of security. Second, unlike a well-defined precise game like Russian roulette, where the risks are visible to anyone capable of multiplying and dividing by six, one does not observe the barrel of reality. One is capable of unwittingly playing Russian roulette - and calling it by some alternative “low risk” game. ↗

— Nassim Nicholas Taleb

#truth #life

If in the last few years you haven't discarded a major opinion or acquired a new one, check your pulse. You may be dead. ↗

— Gelett Burgess

#check #dead #discarded #few #haven

Nothing so ageing as giving into preconceived perceptions; the youth within one would not have given in to such stodginess. ↗

— allison malm

#age

Presque tous les malheurs de la vie viennent des fausses idées que nous avons sur ce qui nous arrive. Connaître à fond les hommes, juger sainement des événements, est donc un grand pas vers le bonheur." ("Almost all our misfortunes in life come from the wrong notions we have about the things that happen to us. To know men thoroughly, to judge events sanely, is, therefore, a great step towards happiness.") [Journal entry, 10 December 1801] ↗

— Stendhal

#reality #reality-check #self-knowledge #self-perception #unhappiness

These young guys are playing checkers. I'm out there playing chess. ↗

— Kobe Bryant

#chess #guys #i #out #playing

If you knew your potential to feel good, you would ask no one to be different so that you can feel good. You would free yourself of all of that cumbersome impossibility of needing to control the world, or control your mate, or control your child. You are the only one who creates your reality. For no one else can think for you, no one else can do it. It is only you, every bit of it you. ↗

— Esther Hicks

#abraham-hicks #allow #control-freaks #control-issues #controlling

When one person makes an accusation, check to be sure he himself is not the guilty one. Sometimes it is those whose case is weak who make the most clamour. ↗

— Piers Anthony

#case #check #clamour #guilty #himself

Right now, too many women who reach retirement age find themselves widowed or single, relying on their Social Security check for over half of their income. ↗

— Judy Biggert

#check #find #half #income #many

I'm the biggest fighter in the history of the sport. If you don't believe it, check the cash register. ↗

— Mike Tyson

#biggest #cash #cash register #check #fighter

If you're like me, I get hooked into to-do lists, you know. I'll say I checked that off. Okay, I did that. And you have all these things you're doing. ↗

— Jeff Bridges

#did #doing #get #hooked #i