“I always thought that inspiration is for amateurs. The rest of us just show up and get to work.” That’s one of many, many tidbits to be found at the site for Andrew Zuckerman’s new book, Wisdom. Go there. Watch the clip. Then see if you can resist the urge to buy the book.
If I were to wish for anything, I should not wish for wealth and power, but for the passionate sense of potential — for the eye which, ever young and ardent, sees the possible. Pleasure disappoints; possibility never.
—Søren Kierkegaard
Words ought to be a little wild for they are the assaults of thought on the [...]
I knew it all along, but it’s nice to have some science to back it up
Spending on Happiness — HBS Working Knowledge
Can money buy you happiness? Yes—so long as you spend the money on someone else. According to new research, giving other people even as little as $5 can lead to increased well-being for the [...]
There is some conventional wisdom that experience brings a certain necessary cynicism. That having seen it all before removes the shine from life. That there are always some disappointments, and they accrete over time into a dull patina between us and our experience of the world.
Me, I think that’s certainly understandable, but not necessary.
And today, [...]
Own only what you can always carry with you; know languages, know countries, know people. Let your memory be your travel bag.
—Alexander Solzhenitsyn
So I can’t claim not to have stuff… but I can certainly claim to understand that the things that matter are people and stories. It doesn’t hurt to remind myself from time to [...]
I have always known
That at last I would
Take this road, but yesterday
I did not know that it would be today.
Ariwara no Narihira (translated by Kenneth Rexroth)
A strange old man
Stops me,
Looking out of my deep mirror.
Kakinomoto no Hitomaro (translated by Kenneth Rexroth)
The mists rise over
The still pools at Asuka.
Memory does not
Pass away so easily.
Yamabe no [...]
I’m leaving the title off of this until the end–read it first.
Doctor, you say there are no haloes
around the streetlights in Paris
and what I see is an aberration
caused by old age, an affliction
I tell you it has taken me all my life
to arrive at the vision of gas lamps as angels,
to soften and blur and [...]
Tatiana
Alex Wilson
Mr. McLarenAlex Wilson
Biff
will shetterly
GeorgeAlex Wilson
KiraKira