Quote Of The Week

Quote of the Week 26 " Receive without pride, let go without attachment. " ―  Marcus Aurelius  ( Meditations, 8.33 ) Alternative translation : " Receive [wealth or prosperity] without arrogance; and be ready to let it go. "   Triggered by a recent Daily Stoics tweet : "Receive without pride, let go without attachment." — Marcus Aurelius What do you think this means? pic.twitter.com/eGHrpPfZIz — Daily Stoic (@dailystoic) June 13, 2024

Quote of the Week 25 " Journalists ought not to be serving a cause, no matter how good." ― Walter Lippmann Triggered by last week's The Pioneer Briefing podcast " Die Medien tragen nicht unerheblich zur gesellschaftlichen Verrohung bei " and a controversial award . Hanns Joachim Friedrichs  made a variation of the quote popular in Germany :  „Einen guten Journalisten erkennt man daran, dass er Distanz zum Gegenstand seiner Betrachtung hält; dass er sich nicht gemeinmacht mit einer Sache, auch nicht mit einer guten Sache; dass er immer dabei ist, aber nie dazugehört.“

  2nd Quote of the Week 24 " A word model is not a world model." ―  Alan Bipe

2nd Quote of the Week 24 "Victory belongs to the most persevering." ― Napoleon Bonaparte Triggered by a variant of the quote as seen during the 2024 French Open final : "Victory belongs to the most tenacious." ― Roland Garros

Quote of the Week 23 " You can have it all, just not all at the same time." ― Betty Friedan A variation of the quote is attributed to Oprah Winfrey : " You can have it all. Just not all at once." Triggered by a recent Pivot podcast . Related  quote of week 4/24 : "Time exists so that everything doesn’t happen at once.    Space exists so that it doesn’t all happen to you." ―  Susan Sontag  

Quote of the Week 22 " There is nothing more a wish can lose than by coming true." ― Peter Bamm " Ein Wunsch kann durch nichts mehr verlieren als dadurch, dass er in Erfüllung geht. "

Quote of the Week 21 " Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. " ―  Lord Acton Triggered by the episode " Keine Angst vor Macht und Mächtigen " (April 16, 2024) of the German " Wegen guter Führung " podcast.  See also: Macht // Power . Quote in context ( Letter to Bishop Mandell Creighton , April 5, 1887 ): " ... I cannot accept your canon that we are to judge Pope and King unlike other men, with a favourable presumption that they did no wrong. If there is any presumption it is the other way, against the holders of power, increasing as the power increases. Historic responsibility has to make up for the want of legal responsibility.  Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority, still more when you superadd the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority.  There is no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies t...

Quote of the Week 20 " The dose makes the poison." ―  Paracelsus aka  Theophrastus von Hohenheim "Sola dosis facit venenum." " Nur die Dosis macht das Gift. " Full quote : " All things are poison, and nothing is without poison; the dosage alone makes it so a thing is not a poison . "

Quote of the Week 19 " I know it when I see it." ―  Potter Stewart The phrase appears in Justice Potter Stewart's concurring opinion in Jacobellis v. Ohio , a pornography case decided by the Court in 1964. Also referred to as Steve Jobs ' Credo  by Malcolm Gladwell in a New Yorker book review of the Steve Jobs biography (authored by Walter Isaacson) : " I’ll know it when I see it.  That was Jobs’s credo, and until he saw it his perfectionism kept him on edge. "

Quote of the Week 18 " Tame birds sing of freedom. Wild birds fly. " ―  John Lennon Triggered by a memorial plaque as seen on the way to Hochries summit.

Quote of the Week 17 " What you can imagine depends on what you know. " ―  Daniel Dennett ( ✝ April 19, 2024) Full quote: “What you can imagine depends on what you know. Philosophers who know only philosophy consign themselves to a janitorial role in the great enterprises of exploration that are illuminating the mysteries of our lives.”

Quote of the Week 16 " Eventually all things fall into place. Until then, laugh at the confusion, live for the moments, and know everything happens for a reason. " ― Albert Schweitzer Triggered by a German reference to the first sentence of the quote as an Icelandic proverb in the book " Arschtritt ins Glück ": " Þetta Reddast. " "Everything will work out in the end." " Es wird sich alles fügen. "

Quote of the Week 15 " Friends should be judged by their acts, not their words. " ― Titus Livius ( Livy ) in  Ab urbe condita 34 ,49,7 . " Ex factis, non ex dictis amicos pensent. " " Nach ihren Taten, nicht nach ihren Worten soll man die Freunde wägen. " Related: "I ch hätte sie nach ihren Taten und nicht nach ihren Worten beurteilen sollen. " " I ought to have judged by deeds and not by words. " ―  Antoine de Saint-Exupéry  in " Der Kleine Prinz " // " The Little Prince " "Taten, nicht Worte!" "Acta, non verba. " ―  Latin Phrase   " Actions speak louder than words. " ―  English Proverb

Quote of the Week 14 " Nothing in life is as important as you think it is while you are thinking about it. " ― Daniel Kahneman  ( Thinking Fast and Slow ) Triggered by Cass Sunstein's tweet on the day of Kahneman's death last week (March 27, 2024).

Quote of the Week 13 " The movement you need is on your shoulder. " ― Paul McCartney ( Hey Jude , song lyrics) The best line in the song according to John Lennon.  Featured in  the  McCartney: A Life in Lyrics  podcast describing the genesis of the song by its creator .

Quote of the Week 12 " The idea of the future, pregnant with an infinity of possibilities, is thus more fruitful than the future itself, and this is why we find more charm in hope than in possession, in dreams than in reality. " ―   Henri Bergson The search for this quote was triggered by a recent visit to Bergson Kunstkraftwerk  still under construction. Another quote attributed to Bergson for which I could not find the original source: " New ideas, in most cases, are the children of old thoughts. "

Quote of the Week 11 " The best way to destroy the beauty of a plan is to intend to implement the plan. " ― Joschka Breitner (pseudonym; IRL Karsten Dusse ) Triggered by the use of the quote in Dusse's book :  Das Kind in mir will achtsam morden . " Die beste Art und Weise, die Schönheit eines Planes zu zerstören, ist die Absicht, den Plan umzusetzen. "

Quote of the Week 10 “Most of the shadows of this life are caused by standing in one's own sunshine.”  –  Ralph Waldo Emerson Triggered by the use of the quote in Stefanie Stahl's book referenced by a thoughtful person.  “ Die meisten Schatten in unserem Leben rühren daher,  dass wir uns selbst in der Sonne stehen. “ –  Ralph Waldo Emerson

Quote of the Week 9 " It's not things that upset us, but our judgment about things. " ―   Epictetus Triggered by the following  tweet : 3 Stoic Oneliners To Beat Anxiety: 1. “It's not things that upset us, it's our judgment about things.” — Epictetus 2. “We suffer more in imagination than in reality.” — Seneca 3. “Make the best use of what is in your power, take the rest as it happens.” — Epictetus — Daily Stoic (@dailystoic) February 24, 2024 See also " Discourses of Epictetus: Book Summary, Key Lessons and Best Quotes ": " It is not events that disturb people, it is their judgements concerning them. "

Quote of the Week 8 " The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. " ― Attributed to Edmund Burke Triggered by the following  tweet : #Navalny 's appeal to Russians in case of his death 🎥 Excerpt from the movie "Navalny" by Daniel Rohr, 2022 pic.twitter.com/QET6hQ122V — NEXTA (@nexta_tv) February 16, 2024

Quote of the Week 7 " He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past. " ― George Orwell (1984) Triggered by the following tweet : "He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past.” George Orwell in 1984. Me in the Kremlin to @TuckerCarlson . — Darth Putin (@DarthPutinKGB) February 10, 2024

Quote of the Week 6 “Problem talk creates problems, solution talk creates solutions.”  – Steve de Shazer Triggered by the use of the quote in  Stephanie Salecker 's course material. Related : Solution-focused coaching is based on the radical idea that you can solve many a problem without understanding it fully.  “Solutions need not be directly related to the problems they are meant to solve“ –  Steve de Shazer “In most cases the solution doesn't care how the problem came to be.”  "Der Lösung ist es meist egal wie das Problem entstanden ist." –  Veronika Jungwirth & Ralph Miarka

Quote of the Week 5 " Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans. " ― John Lennon Triggered by recent events.  In essence, life doesn't adhere to our carefully crafted blueprints; it unfolds in its own mysterious and unpredictable manner. Source: The Socratic Mind

Quote of the Week 4 " Time exists so that everything doesn’t happen at once.    Space exists so that it doesn’t all happen to you ." ― Susan Sontag   Triggered by Robert's reference to the quote .  Consult  Quote Investigator for origin and history of the quote that Susan Sontag made popular. Related quote of week 8/23 wrt space & time: "Art is how we decorate space, music is how we decorate time." ―  Jean-Michel Basquiat

Quote of the Week 3 " Happiness is continuing to desire what you already possess. " ―   Friedrich Nietzsche Triggered by the use of a variant of the quote in the movie " The Taste of Things ": "Le bonheur, c’est de continuer à désirer ce que l’on a déjà." " Glück ist, weiter das zu begehren, was man bereits hat. " "Happiness is continuing to desire what we already have."