#y

I do believe in simplicity. It is astonishing as well as sad, how many trivial affairs even the wisest thinks he must attend to in a day; how singular an affair he thinks he must omit. When the mathematician would solve a difficult problem, he first frees the equation of all incumbrances, and reduces it to its simplest terms. So simplify the problem of life, distinguish the necessary and the real. Probe the earth to see where your main roots run. ↗

— Henry David Thoreau

#wisdom #life

Doing nothing requires effort. Over time, that effort is greater than the effort necessary to improve, or move somewhere better. The trick is to redirect energy. ↗

— Max McKeown

#improvement #inertia #leadership #strategy #age

The professional learns to recognize envy-driven criticism and to take it for what it is: the supreme compliment. The critic hates most that which he would have done himself if he had had the guts. ↗

— Steven Pressfield

#creativity #envy #writing #art

If he sends reinforcements everywhere, he will everywhere be weak. ↗

— Sun Tzu

#strategy #war #art

Whether in an advantageous position or a disadvantageous one, the opposite state should be always present to your mind. ↗

— Sun Tzu

#strategy #war #art

It seems to me that the moralist is the most useless and contemptible of creatures. He is useless in that he would expend his energies upon making judgments rather than upon gaining knowledge, for the reason that judgment is easy and knowledge is difficult. He is contemptible in that his judgments reflect a vision of himself which in his ignorance and pride he would impose upon the world. I implore you, do not become a moralist; you will destroy your art and your mind. ↗

— John Edward Williams

#art

The dandy turns idleness into an art form. The couch potato, into a snack form. But the supreme idler is the couch dandy: his art is superficial flavoring. ↗

— Bauvard

#dandyism #idleness #snacking #art

In our national parlance, what's usually meant by the word "maverick" is someone who skirts the edge of sanity--or is so insane as to appear sane--who then does something absolutely insane and yet, after the passage of time, and especially if the maverick's creation yields a profit of any kind, is deemed less and less insane until the maverick worms his or her way into the fibers of history. Then generations grow to envy the ingenuity and courage of the maverick while glossing over the maverick's genetic kookiness. On such shoulders, a country rises. ↗

— Michael Paterniti

#mavericks #courage

Innate in nearly every artistic nature is a wanton, treacherous penchant for accepting injustice when it creates beauty and showing sympathy for and paying homage to aristocratic privilege. ↗

— Thomas Mann

#beauty #bias #bourgeois #capitalism #creativity

Fear is felt by writers at every level. Anxiety accompanies the first word they put on paper and the last. ↗

— Ralph Keyes

#courage #creativity #fear #risks #writers