#i

However mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not shun it and call it hard names. It is not so bad as you are. It looks poorest when you are richest. The fault-finder will find faults even in paradise. Love your life, poor as it is. You may perhaps have some pleasant, thrilling, glorious hours, even in a poor-house. The setting sun is reflected from the windows of the almshouse as brightly as from the rich man's abode. ↗

— Henry David Thoreau

#life #motivation #inspirational

Any time someone gives you drugs, the purpose is to subdue. Always. Whether it is from a dealer, a friend, your mother/brother/sister/son, or your government--especially your government--the intention is to subdue, and always to feed another motive. Why? Because in getting high, your power and your intellect are blunted. Can the motive ever be in your best interests? Governments notoriously use sex, drink, and drugs to subdue their people. Notoriously. And we're falling for it. ↗

— Northern Adams

#evil #government #intelligence #power #subdue

The people who explain politics for a living – the politicians themselves, their advisers, the media who cover them – love to reach conclusions like this one. Elections are decided by charismatic personalities, strategic maneuvers, the power of rhetoric, the zeitgeist of the political moment. The explainers cloak themselves in loose-fitting theories because they offer a narrative comfort, unlike the more honest acknowledgment that elections hinge on the motivations of millions of individual human beings and their messy, illogical, and often unknowable psychologies. ↗

— Sasha Issenberg

#politics #love

Above all, I feel a quiet pride that for the rest of my days I can look at myself in the mirror and know that once upon a time I was good enough. Good enough to call myself a member of the SAS. Some things don’t have a price tag. ↗

— Bear Grylls

#motivational

But the other half of my motivation came from farther back in my brain, in the curious part that I inherited. It came from the spot in my skull that feels the burning need to unravel puzzles, finish crosswords, indulge in Internet games, and read all the mystery books I can get my grubby little paws on. Like it or not, need it or not, and want it or not, I can't leave a good mystery alone. ↗

— Cherie Priest

#puzzles #solving-mysteries #motivational

People will have their excitements, and a good rousing persecution used to stir things like the burning of Chicago or a Presidential election in our day. ↗

— Edward Payson Roe

#puritan #witches #motivational

Just get to lunch,” I muttered to myself. It was the only way I could control my anxiety. In 1998, I’d made it through Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL, or BUD/S, by focusing on just making it to the next meal. It didn’t matter if I couldn’t feel my arms as we hoisted logs over our heads or if the cold surf soaked me to the core. It wasn’t going to last forever. There is a saying: “How do you eat an elephant?” The answer is simple: “One bite at a time.” Only my bites were separated by meals: Make it to breakfast, train hard until lunch, and focus until dinner. Repeat. ↗

— Mark Owen

#motivational #motivational

If you talked to your friends the way you talk to your body, you’d have no friends left at all. ↗

— Marcia Hutchinson

#motivational #self-esteem #self-help #self-improvement #motivational

If you have goals and procrastination, you have nothing. If you have goals and you take action, you will have anything you want. ↗

— Thomas J. Vilord

#motivation #procrastination #motivational

We are not victims of our past, we are victors of our future ↗

— Tina Mitchell

#motivational