#w

People are stupid; given proper motivation, almost anyone will believe almost anything. BecauHse people are stupid, they will believe a lie because they want to believe it’s true, or because they are afraid it might be true. ↗

— Terry Goodkind

#wizard-s-first-rule #zedd #motivational

...if in the heat of the dispute he insists and asks, 'Am I not the master of throwing myself out of the window?' I shall answer him, no; that whilst he preserves his reason there is no probability that the desire of proving his free agency, will become a motive sufficiently powerful to make him sacrifice his life to the attempt: if, notwithstanding this, to prove he is a free agent, he should actually precipitate himself from the window, it would not be a sufficient warranty to conclude he acted freely, but rather that it was the violence of his temperament which spurred him on to this folly. Madness is a state, that depends upon the heat of the blood, not upon the will. A fanatic or a hero, braves death as necessarily as a more phlegmatic man or a coward flies from it. ↗

— Paul Henri Thiry d'Holbach

#free-will #madness #mental-illness #death

Whether it means prizing the value of lessons learned, building games into your creative process, or getting gifts upon certain milestones of achievement, self-derived rewards make a big difference…You cannot ignore or completely escape the deeply ingrained short-term reward system within you. But you can become aware of what really motivates you and then tweak your incentives to sustain your long-term pursuits. ↗

— Scott Belsky

#self-motivation #motivational

In a sense, we here at the FSRI are like giant wizards at the controls of an incredible machine, operating levers and buttons from behind a great tapestry to provide you with the level of motivation and direction necessary for you to succeed! ↗

— Martin Fossum

#motivational

Flowers are like the sweet babies of the nature; they make us to smile. ↗

— Mehmet Murat ildan

#nature

I like the sound of words, but I don't ever really expect my slow, slanted impression of the world to change by what I read. ↗

— Gregory Maguire

#reading #understanding #wicked #words #change

Nixon is the kind of politician who would cut down a redwood tree, then mount the stump for a speech on conservation. ↗

— Adlai Stevenson

#cut #down #kind #mount #nixon

My earlier poems were sadder than my poems are today, perhaps because I wrote them in confusion or when I was unhappy. But I am not a melancholy person, quite the contrary, no one enjoys laughing more than I do. ↗

— Anne Stevenson

#because #confusion #contrary #earlier #enjoys

No, I'm happy doing this. Five sweaters and a pair of dirty pants, you can make pretty good money. ↗

— McLean Stevenson

#doing #five #good #happy #i

If someone wanted to be a runner, you don't tell them to think about running, you tell them to run. And the same simple idea applies to writing, I hope. ↗

— Markus Zusak

#interview #motivational #rule #the-guardian #writing