Our business in life is not to succeed, but to continue to fail in good spirits.
Robert Louis StevensonRead
To know what you prefer instead of humbly saying Amen to what the world tells you ought to prefer, is to have kept your soul alive.
Interpretation
Valuing personal preferences over societal norms is essential for preserving one's true self.
This quote emphasizes the importance of self-awareness and personal choice, suggesting that to truly understand and embrace one's preferences and desires, rather than passively acquiescing to societal expectations, is vital for maintaining one's individuality and spirit. It underscores the idea that true fulfillment comes from being in touch with one's own values and beliefs.
In practice
In a motivational speech about personal growth.
Our business in life is not to succeed, but to continue to fail in good spirits.
Like a bird singing in the rain, let grateful memories survive in time of sorrow.
That man is a success who has lived well, laughed often and loved much.
His past was fairly blameless; few men could read the rolls of their life with less apprehension; yet he was humbled to the dust by the many ill things he had done, and raised up again into sober and fearful gratitude by the many he had come so near to doing, yet avoided.
The habit of being happy enables one to be freed, or largely freed, from the domination of outward conditions.
It is the history of our kindnesses that alone make this world tolerable. If it were not for that, for the effect of kind words, kind looks, kind letters . . . I should be inclined to think our life a practical jest in the worst possible spirit.
You can’t buy that kind of empowerment. To just know that as far as you are aware, you have not got a price; that there is not an amount of money large enough to make you compromise even a tiny bit of principle that, as it turned out, would make no practical difference anyway. I’d advise everyone to do it, otherwise you’re going to end up mastered by money and that’s not a thing you want ruling your life.
Hope, even more than necessity, is the mother of invention.
It is important that you don't let your opponent impose his style of play on you. A part of that begins mentally. At the chessboard if you start blinking every time he challenges you then in a certain sense you are withdrawing. That is very important to avoid.
The more you know, the more unflinchingly you deny casual beliefs and Accepted Wisdom when it flies in the face of reality, the more carefully you observe the world and its people around you, the better chance you have of writing something meaningful and well-crafted.
To get back my youth I would do anything in the world, except take exercise, get up early, or be respectable.
That person who is the hardest to forgive is the one who can teach you the greatest lessons. When you love yourself enough to rise above the old situation, then understanding and forgiveness will be easy. And you'll be free.
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