Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated. – Confucius What does that mean? This quote hit me pretty hard, once I started thinking about it. What if it didn’t matter what kind of car you drove. What if it didn’t matter how nice your house was, so long as it was functional?…
To understand your parents’ love you must raise children yourself. – Chinese Proverbs What does that mean? This will be a challenge to explain. If you have kids, you already know what the quote is talking about. If you don’t have kids, it’s going to be hard to explain this to you. One of the…
The creation of a more peaceful and happier society has to begin from the level of the individual. – Dalai Lama What does that mean? This is a fairly pragmatic statement. There are only a handful of individuals in the world who can influence more than themselves and a few others (close friends and family). For the…
It is double pleasure to deceive the deceiver. – Niccolò Machiavelli What does that mean? This quote is a little petty, but there is a certain satisfaction in putting something over on someone who regularly tries to deceive others. Successfully lying to a habitual liar would fall into this same category. While the quote is specifically about…
The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place. – George Bernard Shaw What does that mean? Communication is very important to inter-personal discussions, as it is how we move ideas from person to person. When communication goes awry, part of the idea is lost or misunderstood by the other…
I always turn to the sports pages first, which records people’s accomplishments.The front page has nothing but man’s failures. –Earl Warren What does that mean? For those of us who aren’t big fans of newspapers, this quote is the embodiment of one of our biggest complaints. The newspapers seem to always focus on the worst…
It is best to rise from life as from a banquet, neither thirsty nor drunken. – Aristotle What does that mean? If I had been thinking, this would have been posted on the 31st of December, where it would have been a bit more topical. However, with the events of New Years Eve still fresh…
Fear is not a lasting teacher of duty. – Cicero What does that mean? This quote is about fear, and duty. Fear is a powerful motivator, but a brief one. Once the danger or threat is gone, so is the motivation. If the only reason you do something you should be doing (a duty) is…
For peace is not mere absence of war, but is a virtue that springs from, a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence, justice. – Baruch Spinoza What does that mean? This quote is just a little long for use on Twitter, and is often changed slightly or tightened up a bit. I have presented…
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog. Here’s an excerpt: A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 5,100 times in 2011. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 4 trips to carry that many people. Click here to…
It is my hope that the twenty-first century will be a century when a more caring, responsible, and compassionate humanity will emerge. – Dalai Lama What does that mean? As we start a New Year, it’s a great time to renew our callings as humans. While the 21st century is over 1/10th of the way through,…
Make no small plans for they have no power to stir the soul. – Niccolò Machiavelli Also attributed (in slightly different words) to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe What does that mean? Which is more inspiring, putting a man on the moon, or going to the grocery store for a gallon of milk? Yes, that’s an extreme example,…
Time to maximize what matters most to you. For most people….”Killing time is not murder, it’s suicide!” Tony Robbins and here What does that mean? This is a quote I like, even though it’s obviously shortened. It starts by emphasizing that you need to figure out what matters most to you and get busy working on it. There…
Knowledge which is divorced from justice, may be called cunning rather than wisdom. – Cicero What does that mean? In this quote, I believe he is talking about the fact that knowledge doesn’t have morals built into it. Fire can be used to keep you warm, or it can be used to kill you. Fire…
To know what people really think, pay regard to what they do, rather than what they say. – Descartes What does that mean? This quote reminds us that people will say things that they think you want to hear, or that they believe are expected of them. However, they might not truly believe the words…
