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Memes

161–180 of 4,816

The Mind is the Way

Someone who seeks the Way doesn't look beyond himself. He knows that the mind is the Way. But when he finds the mind, he finds nothing. And when he finds the Way, he finds nothing. If you think you can use the mind to find the Way, you're deluded. When you're deluded, buddhahood exists. When you're aware, it doesn't…

The Tarot Suites and Writing

i think that writing and magic are pretty much synonymous what I am trying to say is that there are certain things which are given as advice to magicians which I would also think would be useful advice for somebody who is aspiring to be a writer these are the four suits of the tarot deck starting from the lowest um…

Our Historical Selves Become More Defining Than Our Present Selves

...it is easy to see the conventional character of roles. For a man who is a father may also be a doctor and an artist, as well as an employee and a brother. And it is obvious that even the sum total of these role labels will be far from supplying an adequate description of the man himself, even though it may place…

Grammatical Conventions Delineate Reality

Thus the task of education is to make children fit to live in a society by persuading them to learn and accept its codes-the rules and conventions of communication whereby the society holds itself together. There is first the spoken language. The child is taught to accept "tree" and not "boojum" as the agreed sign for…

Be a Leader

A leader’s job often includes changing your people’s attitudes and behavior. Some suggestions to accomplish this: PRINCIPLE 1 Begin with praise and honest appreciation. PRINCIPLE 2 Call attention to people’s mistakes indirectly. PRINCIPLE 3 Talk about your own mistakes before criticizing the other person. PRINCIPLE 4…

How to Win People to Your Way of Thinking

PRINCIPLE 1 The only way to get the best of an argument is to avoid it. PRINCIPLE 2 Show respect for the other person's opinions. Never say, "You're wrong." PRINCIPLE 3 If you are wrong, admit it quickly and emphatically. PRINCIPLE 4 Begin in a friendly way. PRINCIPLE 5 Get the other person saying “yes, yes”…

Six Ways to Make People Like You

PRINCIPLE 1 Become genuinely interested in other people. PRINCIPLE 2 Smile. PRINCIPLE 3 Remember that a person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language. PRINCIPLE 4 Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about themselves. PRINCIPLE 5 Talk in terms of the other person’s…

A Universal of Human Conduct

There is one all-important law of human conduct. If we obey that law, we shall almost never get into trouble. In fact, that law, if obeyed, will bring us countless friends and constant happiness. But the very instant we break the law, we shall get into endless trouble. The law is this: Always make the other person…

Choose to be Happy

It isn’t what you have or who you are or where you are or what you are doing that makes you happy or unhappy. It is what you think about it. For example, two people may be in the same place, doing the same thing; both may have about an equal amount of money and prestige, and yet one may be miserable and the other…

10 Rules to Not Being Offended

If any have offended against thee, consider first: What is my relation to men, and that we are made for one another; and in another respect, I was made to be set over them, as a ram over the flock or a bull over the herd. But examine the matter from first principles, from this: If all things are not mere atoms, it is…

Someone Will be Happy You are Dead

There is no man so fortunate that there shall not be by him when he is dying some who are pleased with what is going to happen. Suppose that he was a good and wise man, will there not be at last some one to say to himself, Let us at last breathe freely being relieved from this schoolmaster? It is true that he was…

Reflect on Your Own Errors to Avoid Placing Fault

When thou art offended at any man's fault, forthwith turn to thyself and reflect in what like manner thou dost err thyself; for example, in thinking that money is a good thing, or pleasure, or a bit of reputation, and the like. For by attending to this thou wilt quickly forget thy anger, if this consideration also is…

Things Produced in a Hidden Way

A man deposits seed in a womb and goes away, and then another cause takes it, and labours on it and makes a child. What a thing from such a material! Again, the child passes food down through the throat, and then another cause takes it and makes perception and motion, and in fine life and strength and other things…

Do Not Be Governed by Chance

The periodic movements of the universe are the same, up and down from age to age. And either the universal intelligence puts itself in motion for every separate effect, and if this is so, be thou content with that which is the result of its activity; or it puts itself in motion once, and everything else comes by way…

"Having" Mode and "Being" Mode

The American essayist and biographer Agnes Repplier saw leisure as necessary for the completion not just of individuals but of civilizations. Leisure, she noted, “has a distinct and honorable place wherever nations are released from the pressure of their first rude needs, their first homely toil, and the rise of…

We Make Life Short by Dissipating It

Seneca observed that “we do not receive a life that is short, but rather we make it so,” by dissipating it in “extravagance and carelessness.” How better to describe the contemporary leisure experience? Americans spend, on average, more than three hours per day—more than 60 percent of their “leisure” time—watching TV…

The Problem of Leisure

Over a decade of writing and thinking about modern work and its opportunity costs, I have generally mentioned the “problem of leisure” only in passing, largely because I would like to believe that it is soluble. Yet the political situation in the United States (and some other industrialised democracies) demands a…