The wisdom of the ages: Standing on the shoulders of giants
Some of my favorite biographies thus far.
25 min readAug 2, 2021
I must begin with a book I am currently rereading. Among my favorite books, this is one of the best. Read this one book in the remaining months of this year if you are going to read just one. Naval Ravinkant’s book isn’t a biography, per se, but rather a collection of the wisdom he’s acquired over the years.
The Almanack of Naval Ravikant: A Guide to Wealth and Happiness
- There’s a cliché about philosophers that isn’t necessarily true, but in these blinks, you’ll learn from Naval Ravikant about the practical business of making money, and the secret of living well.
- Over a long period of time, a good reputation is built on the work and relationships you build with people. If you want a good reputation, you need to work to build a good relationship with people.
Making money is not a thing you do — it’s a skill you learn.
- The most important skill for getting rich is becoming a perpetual learner.
- Whenever you can in life, optimize for independence rather than pay. If you have independence and you’re accountable on your output, as opposed to your input — that’s the dream.
- If you want to win a game, you must lose someone. Politics is a necessary evil, but in the money game, you can win without putting anyone else down.
- Over the course of the day, our monkey mind covers tens of thousands of these branches, which are our judgments, movies about the past and fantasies about a future. Meditation helps us focus our attention on the present moment.
- Happiness is a skill you learn by practicing, and if you’re going to practice, it should be something that works for you. There are many different means to get there, but it’s important to find out what works for you and try it.
- Some things don’t meet the standard of scientific evidence, but they can still help you. Building good habits and quitting things like alcohol and sugar can help you find happiness.
- To be successful and happy, we must avoid bad investments and make good decisions. When we are faced with a choice between two solutions, we should lean into the pain and choose the solution that leads to long-term happiness.
- You don’t get rich renting out your time, but by owning equity in a business. Code and media are permissionless leverage, and you should optimize for independence in your life.
- Retirement is when you stop sacrificing today for an imaginary tomorrow. When today is complete, in and of itself, you’re retired.
Intentions don’t matter. Actions do. That’s why being ethical is hard.
Principles: Life and Work
by Ray Dalio
- When making plans for the future, one must define what he wants, ask himself, and stress test his ideas.
- To achieve your goals faster, you need to take responsibility for your actions, and rely on the help of others.
- Embracing reality, accepting reality, and worrying about reaching your goals instead of looking good are key to building strength, and building a better life requires accepting pain and taking responsibility for the outcomes.
- You need to separate your two personalities, so you can create the best possible machine.
- When you start a YouTube channel, you need to hire an editor and manage systems to achieve your goals.
- Setting clear goals and identifying problems are the basics to fixing problems.
- Be self-reflective, write down weaknesses and acknowledge the merits of mistake-based learning.
- Be assertive and open-minded, acknowledge and resolve conflicts, don’t confuse the opinions of others with the rights to complain or give advice, and make decisions.
- Think about values, abilities, and skills that are important to the job. The type of person you hire must match the requirements for the job.
- Hire people for their character, not their job.
- Understand the differences between managing, micromanaging, and not managing, hold people accountable, assign responsibilities, and learn to trust and communicate the plan.
- Know what makes your people tick, and make sure your people do their jobs well. Probe people to find out the truth.
- While most people prefer compliments to criticism, accurate criticism can be equally valuable to you and your people.
- Provide constant feedback to keep the learning in perspective, let them know what they should and should not be doing, and do not lower the bar.
- To catch problems, you need to use tools like issues logs, metrics, surveys, checklists, outside consultants, and internal auditors.
- Diagnosing the root cause of a problem, and asking the following questions, helps to produce positive outcomes.
- Don’t act before thinking. Come up with a good game plan, build an organization with goals rather than tasks, delineate responsibilities and report to the right people, and take time to think.
- Remember that you want to find the best answer, not the best answer you have.
Poor Charlie’s Almanack: The Wit and Wisdom of Charles T. Munger
by Charles T. Munger, Peter E. Kaufman
- Charles Munger is one of the world’s wealthiest businessmen, but you’ve probably never heard of him. He’s a principled investor who insists on honesty and refuses to store his money in tax havens.
- After graduating from Harvard, Warren Buffet became a partner in Munger, Tolles, and Olson, an extremely successful law firm in California, where he grew to become highly respected, until he became restless, and decided to join Buffett in managing Berkshire Hathaway, a holding company.
- Charlie on attracting clients: “It’s the work on your desk…. It’s the work on your desk. Do well with what you already have and more will come in.”
“In business we often find that the winning system goes almost ridiculously far in maximizing and/or minimizing one or a few variables-like the discount warehouses of Costco.”
- Cicero, learned man that he was, believed in self-improvement so long as breath lasts.
“It is a grand mistake to think of being great without goodness and I pronounce it as certain that there was never a truly great man that was not at the same time truly virtuous.”
- Personally, I’ve gotten so that I now use a kind of two-track analysis. First, what are the factors that really govern the interests involved, rationally considered?
- If only one lesson is to be chosen from a package of lessons involving Social-Proof Tendency, and used in self improvement, my favorite would be: Learn how to ignore the examples from others when they are wrong, because few skills are more worth having.
- Just as multiple factors shape almost every system, multiple models from a variety of disciplines, applied with fluency, are needed to understand that system.
Steve Jobs
- Steve Jobs played an important role in the creation of our contemporary computer-mediated world. His single-minded perfectionist and visionary nature allowed him to achieve great things, but these same traits also caused friction and conflict.
- In 1955, Steve Jobs was born, and he and Steve Wozniak formed Apple, where they created the Blue Box to make long-distance phone calls for free. They sold almost 100 boxes, and Wozniak took the design and turned it into a business, making the product the first Apple computer.
- In the late 1960s, Jobs became a geek, started taking LSD, travelled to India and discovered Zen Buddhism, all of which helped him develop a minimalist aesthetic that he would later use to design Apple products.
- In the early 1970s, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak founded Apple, a company that would lead to the invention of the modern personal computer. They built their first computers by hand and began to sell them half to friends and half to local computer dealers.
- Jobs was an unforgiving perfectionist, who threw temper tantrums if work didn’t meet his high standards. Scott, appointed as Apple’s president, was tasked with getting the case of the Apple II made and sold, because Jobs’s perfectionism was causing problems.
- Jobs created the Macintosh, an unparalleled success that made him wealthy and famous, but he was not a success, as the Macintosh was not solely Jobs’s invention. The Macintosh made Jobs wealthy and famous, and he was let go by the company.
- After his firing from Apple, Jobs created a new company called NeXT — a computer aimed at the educational market — but his vision of the perfect cube was a death knell for the project. Jobs then invested in another company called Pixar, which ultimately made Toy Story.
- In 1986, Jobs found his biological mother, and married Laurene Powell in 1991; he later tried to be a more proactive father to Lisa Brennan, his first child from a previous relationship. He also became close to his sister, Mona Simpson.
- Apple started to decline after Jobs’s dismissal, but it teamed up with NeXT in 1997. Jobs grabbed as much control as he could.
- Apple’s board realized that Amelio was not going to be Apple’s savior, but they thought Jobs might be able to save the company. So Apple’s board offered Jobs the CEO position, but Jobs declined, and instead helped lead the search for a new CEO.
- Jobs and Jony Ive, a designer, designed the iMac, a computer that was sold for around $1,200 and designed for the everyday consumer. The iMac became the fastest-selling computer in Apple’s history, and after its success, Jobs decided to design an Apple Store.
- Jobs created a digital hub strategy, releasing a new music player, a cell phone, and then a tablet computer. With the iPod, iPhone, and iPad, Apple’s strategy was successful, with iPods, iPhones, and iPads generating more profit than any other technology devices.
- After a routine urological exam, Jobs was diagnosed with cancer, and he rejected all conventional wisdom to combat it, refusing surgery for a period of nine months. Jobs then had invasive surgery to remove the tumor, but even then, he refused surgery until he lost over 40 pounds.
Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future
by Ashlee Vance
- Elon Musk’s interests and passions lay bare his success in solar power, electric cars and space travel.
- Elon Musk’s sense of mission is evident in his grueling weekly schedule of SpaceX work, followed by Silicon Valley work, ending with a flight back to Los Angeles. His sense of purpose is evident in his commitment to changing the history of the world.
- Elon Musk grew up in South Africa with a difficult relationship with his father and a photographic memory. His father was often abusive, and when Musk was 12, he started building video games for $500.
- Elon Musk left South Africa, enrolled at Queen’s University, and made friends at the University of Pennsylvania. He then hosted house parties in a 14-bedroom house, and made enough money from one night to pay for a month’s rent.
- Musk, a self-taught coder, founded his first company to help small businesses to get online, but when Mohr Davidow Ventures invested, things began to change. The company eventually sold to Compaq Computer, but Musk left the company to pursue new projects.
- Musk became a big-boys’ club member and bought a McLaren sports car, a condo and a small prop plane. He then created an online bank, X.com, which soon became part of PayPal, which was sold to eBay in 2002, and Musk made $250 million.
- Musk decided to relocate his family to Los Angeles after his 30th birthday, and relocated Mars Society mice into orbit.
- Musk dropped a rocket plan that would cost $30 million but started a company that would send a 1,400-pound payload for $6.9 million. It took 4 years before SpaceX would successfully launch a rocket.
- Tesla Motors was founded in 2003 by three men who had an idea for a car that could compete with the high-power brands Jaguar and Ferrari. This idea was rejected by venture capitalists, but Musk invested $6.5 million and made the car cool and desirable.
- Despite a slow start, Tesla’s Model S changed transportation forever. It was named car of the year by Motor Trend and Consumer Reports, and the company’s founder, Elon Musk, didn’t even manufacture cars before.
- Musk is the founder of SpaceX, Tesla and SolarCity and is passionate about cars, solar panels and batteries. These three ventures, while successful individually, strategically complement each other, and all help Musk pursue his real goal: the survival of the human species.
- Musk’s grand plans include the Hyperloop, which is a new mode of transportation that will transport people and cars at high speeds. SpaceX will also test its ability to take people into space, and Tesla will focus on bringing a new model to the market.
- Elon Musk is a man of ambitious passion and drive, who is a great innovator of sustainable technology. He is passionate about humanity’s survival and is an exceptional man who has led sustainable technology to astonishing new heights.
Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose
by Tony Hsieh
- In life and in business, the important thing is to find out what you are truly passionate about. This will make you more likely to make the right decisions and not chase the wrong dreams.
- Rapid growth can be exciting, but too much growth and the wrong people hired can damage a company’s culture. Take your time when hiring people, and ensure they share your vision and are looking to contribute to the company culture.
- To have a great company culture, a team has to be able to feel connected and to share a common purpose. This is why Tony Hsieh found that moving to a new city helped the Zappos team grow closer together.
- To build a great company, you have to constantly challenge and encourage employees to learn new skills and take on new challenges. The Zappos team encourages employees to take on challenges because they learn new skills and gain confidence.
- Tony Hsieh’s advice for companies aiming to be the best at one thing is to keep focus throughout the company and never outsource. One of the radical things Zappos did was move headquarters to Las Vegas, where they wanted to build their customer support call center.
- Instead of worrying about how to get media attention, focus on delivering a great customer experience and service. If you do this, people will naturally talk about your brand, and the buzz will follow.
- Zappos has a purpose bigger than sales and profits, and Tony Hsieh has a vision of a higher purpose to make customers happy and make them believe in their company.
- Customer service and company culture are keys to making customers and employees happy.
The Ride of a Lifetime: Lessons Learned from 15 Years as CEO of the Walt Disney Company
- Disney is a company that has become the largest entertainment company on the planet thanks to successful movies and a theme park empire. Its CEO Robert Iger transformed the company’s fortunes and helped it become the most profitable media operation on the planet.
- ABC Sports was bought for $3.5 billion by Capital Cities Communications, which stripped away many perks and promoted an outsider, but Iger stayed and he was made senior vice president of programming. He was happy under his new boss, who trusted him to take on the biggest projects.
- ABC’s Iger improvised by broadcasting human interest stories instead of cancelled Olympic events, and the ratings were historically high.
- The president of ABC had to decide on the lineup for the 1989–1990 season. Iger decided to commission the pilot episode of David Lynch’s Twin Peaks because his show, Eraserhead, was a hit movie, and he had to find a new show to keep viewers interested.
- In the long run, Iger got called by Hollywood to discuss future projects.
- Steve Jobs offered a deal to repair relations with Pixar in exchange for a 10 percent stake in Pixar. The board was not convinced, but Iger had another idea — buying Pixar outright.
- Disney needed Pixar’s help. In 2005, Iger approached Jobs, convinced him that buying Pixar was a good idea and by early 2006, a deal had been hashed out whereby Pixar would continue making successful movies and Disney would make movies based on Pixar’s technology.
- The lesson from Arledge that if you don’t innovate, you die guided Iger’s approach to running Disney.
- Disney had two choices: buy a platform or build one. They chose to buy a small platform because it allowed them to pivot into new markets quickly.
- Robert Iger, who was made president of ABC Entertainment and COO of Disney, made bold decisions that helped the company’s ratings rise and attract the attention of Hollywood.
How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big: Kind of the Story of My Life
by Scott Adams
- Scott Adams, the famous cartoonist, had many failures before creating his hugely successful comic strip Dilbert. However, he used these failures as material for his comics and he ended up becoming a successful cartoonist.
- If you want to be a doctor, lawyer, or successful tech person, you should do some introspection.
- If you feel drained and unmotivated, or eat even though you’re not hungry, it’s probably because you’re not following your own natural rhythms and energy levels. Instead, you should follow your own rhythms and energy levels, and pay attention to your natural rhythms.
- If you’re struggling to stick to a virtuous routine, you should start with some dietary tips, and make sure to include exercise in your daily routine. Also, when you’ve completed a successful workout, give yourself a reward, such as a healthy snack or tiny indulgence.
- Moods are infectious, and can be used to our advantage by associating with the people we want to be like. The author was encouraged to associate with people he wanted to be like, and now wonders if this was the reason he got inspired to write Dilbert.
- This book explains that you should take chances, explore many options, and use your special skills to succeed.
Meditations
- Marcus Aurelius was an Emperor in Rome in the second century AD, and a Stoic philosopher who gained the title of philosopher king. His ideas have inspired writers like John Steinbeck and politicians like Bill Clinton.
- The author of Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius believed in logos, the immutable essence of life, which gives everything order, and why everything happens, even when it causes pain, because logos keeps the world moving forward in the best way possible.
- In ancient times, death was a real concern. However, the author was a different kind of person, and didn’t fear death because it is a part of life, and logos is a greater plan, and death is something inevitable, even for the best people.
- Since we don’t know when our death is coming, we should always do our best to live a healthy, productive life as much as possible. And even when we’re annoyed by the things we have to do, we should remember our role as an emperor.
- The author and the Stoic school of philosophy valued reason over emotions, and a calm, collected mind was better than a mind ruled by desires. This approach makes sense since a calm and analytical mind is better than one ruled by desires and feelings.
- Ancient Rome was full of dangers, especially for an emperor, but by maintaining the belief that all things happen for a good and logical reason, the author dealt with the pain of losing children and losing his wife.
- The Universe and life are governed by a force called logos. This force offers proof that everything happens for a reason, so don’t fear death, suffering or doubt your duty to society.
I Am Dynamite!: A Life of Nietzsche
by Sue Prideaux
- Friedrich Nietzsche, who is a key figure in the history of philosophy, was a key figure in the late nineteenth century. However, his career began impressively and he was appointed Chair of Classical Philology at 24.
- Friedrich Nietzsche was born in the town of Röcken, in the south of Germany, in 1844. His intellectual background was set from early childhood, and in 1868 he received a life-changing invitation to visit the Wagner home in Germany.
- Friedrich Nietzsche was the youngest person ever to be appointed Chair of Classical Philology at the University of Basel. He declared the death of God and how his sister Elisabeth controlled his legacy into the twentieth century.
- Nietzsche was thrilled by the appointment, and became friends with Richard Wagner and Cosima Wagner. He also became friends with a professor named Jacob Burckhardt, but they did not agree on the Franco-Prussian War of 1870.
- Nietzsche’s book was a manifesto pro-Wagner. It introduced the conflict between Apollonian and Dionysian, and how the two art forms could transport the spirit to a state of bliss.
- After The Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsche struggled with his academic reputation, his health, and his relationships. He continued writing and began a series of what he called Untimely Meditations, but this book too was not well received.
- His health declined and he became unable to tolerate natural light, but he found friends in the likes of Paul Rée, who introduced him to the Voltaire’s philosophy and the woman that would become his companion.
- Nietzsche wrote his first book in an aphoristic style that was dedicated to Voltaire despite the disapproval of Wagner. He resigned from the university in 1879 because of poor health, and spent the next 6 years wandering around Europe.
- Nietzsche wrote an intellectual evolution that pleased Burckhardt and Rée but offended many others, including his sister, Cosima. He also climbed the fearsome Monte Sacro with Lou Salomé in 1882, a highly intelligent and charming young woman.
- Nietzsche’s book The Gay Science begins with the words “God is dead.” He ponders the moral vacuum that might emerge if the old dominance of Christian dogma were to be ended.
- Despite Nietzsche’s rift with Wagner, Parsifal’s premiere was a major cultural event in Bayreuth, despite which Nietzsche did not attend and did not include his sister. The trip, despite being intended to strengthen the bond between the two, turned out to be disastrous.
- Nietzsche’s health suffered during the winter of 1882–83 and he took opium to combat his sickness. However, he began writing Thus Spoke Zarathustra on Christmas Day.
- Nietzsche’s first book, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, depicts a Persian prophet, Zarathustra, who is an ancient Persian prophet who descends from a mountain after ten years of solitude, preaching that a superman must emerge to resolve the moral crisis plaguing mankind since the death of God.
- Nietzsche’s publisher withdrew support for his book, Zarathustra, and the university of Basel had to renew his pension. However, Nietzsche was running out of money.
- Nietzsche was an unstable, near-blind philosopher who continued to travel the world and produce incendiary works despite his many illnesses and failing finances.
- Nietzsche, in his book Beyond Good and Evil, encouraged readers to stop thinking of good and evil as absolutes, arguing that we must adopt the morality of the superman, who questions every belief with an open-ended, “What if?”
- Nietzsche penned a series of bizarre letters, in which he exaggerated his status, and wrote to friends like August Strindberg, and Cosima Wagner.
- Burckhardt took Nietzsche’s letter to Overbeck, who convinced Nietzsche to come to a clinic in Basel, where he remained with his mother for several years. His sister Elisabeth moved him to Weimar, where they cultivated Nietzsche’s growing legend.
- A well-connected young count promoted Nietzsche’s work in 1891, and his texts, especially Spoke Zarathustra, became fashionable.
- Nietzsche suffered from terrible health and descended into madness, but he eventually gained fame.
Letters from a Stoic
by Seneca
- Seneca’s letter to his friends, written almost two thousand years ago, is a collection of actionable insights that can help you onto the right path of reflection, inner peace and the avoidance of temptation.
- Philosophy is the study of truth and how we can use the truth to live a good life. The study of truth allows us to make better decisions, like not to fear death and not to seek after the pleasures of the world.
- Philosophy teaches us that we don’t need a banquet hall to be happy, just as we don’t need to have a palace to find shelter. The first subject you’ll need if you want to become wise is philosophy.
- To become a philosopher, you must take your studies seriously, and stick to a single author, so you can really understand the idea. You need to study a lot of material, but you must also compare the ideas of many different authors and draw your own conclusions.
- Travel may seem like a good idea, but you can’t get restless by traveling the whole world. You need to develop a healthy mind if you want to travel the world and enjoy peace of mind.
- Even if you have a sound mind, you can’t sleep because you’re still thinking about strange noises. Rather than working out, think about philosophy, which is the handmaiden of tranquility.
- The Romans enjoyed seeing gladiators, bullfights and being put to the sword at their local gladiator shows, and vice is everywhere. However, vice can be avoided by living in harmony with nature and by thinking of yourself as your best friend.
- When you are at your best, you should be preparing for the eventuality that everything you have might be taken from you. That way, when the worst-case scenario happens, you’ll have a clear and calm mind to deal with it.
- To be in harmony with nature, you should choose your friends wisely and make sure you let them in.
- When choosing friends, base your decision on trust and consider becoming friends with a trustworthy fellow traveler. The wise value friendship and consider it valuable and will only enter into a friendship if they aren’t out for themselves.
- Studying philosophy can help us in our pursuit of leading a simple life in accordance with nature, free of vices and temptations. Once we internalize the lessons philosophy offers, our minds can become oases of calm in a tempestuous world.
Can’t Hurt Me: Master Your Mind and Defy the Odds
- Everything in life is a mind game! Whenever we get swept under by life’s dramas, large and small, we are forgetting that no matter how bad the pain gets, no matter how harrowing the torture, all bad things end.
- If you want to master the mind and remove your governor, you’ll have to become addicted to hard work. Because passion and obsession, even talent, are only useful tools if you have the work ethic to back them up.
So I sought out pain, fell in love with suffering, and eventually transformed myself from the weakest piece of shit on the planet into the hardest man God ever created, or so I tell myself. - From then on, I brainwashed myself into craving discomfort. If it was raining, I would go run. Whenever it started snowing, my mind would say, Get your fucking running shoes on. Sometimes I wussed out and had to deal with it at the Accountability Mirror. But facing that mirror, facing myself, motivated me to fight through uncomfortable experiences, and, as a result, I became tougher. And being tough and resilient helped me meet my goals.
- Heraclitus, a philosopher born in the Persian Empire back in the fifth century BC, had it right when he wrote about men on the battlefield. “Out of every one hundred men,” he wrote, “ten shouldn’t even be there, eighty are just targets, nine are the real fighters, and we are lucky to have them, for they make the battle. Ah, but the one, one is a warrior…”
- Human beings change through study, habit, and stories. Through my story you will learn what the body and mind are capable of when they’re driven to maximum capacity, and how to get there. Because when you’re driven, whatever is in front of you, whether it’s racism, sexism, injuries, divorce, depression, obesity, tragedy, or poverty, becomes fuel for your metamorphosis.
- Doing things — even small things — that make you uncomfortable will help make you strong. The more often you get uncomfortable the stronger you’ll become, and soon you’ll develop a more productive, can-do dialogue with yourself in stressful situations.
- The reason it’s important to push hardest when you want to quit the most is because it helps you callous your mind. It’s the same reason why you have to do your best work when you are the least motivated. That’s why I loved PT in BUD/S and why I still love it today. Physical challenges strengthen my mind so I’m ready for whatever life throws at me, and it will do the same for you.
- “In a society where mediocrity is too often the standard and too often rewarded,” he said, “there is intense fascination with men who detest mediocrity, who refuse to define themselves in conventional terms, and who seek to transcend traditionally recognized human capabilities. This is exactly the type of person BUD/S is meant to find. The man who finds a way to complete each and every task to the best of his ability. The man who will adapt and overcome any and all obstacles.”
Man’s Search for Meaning
- Love goes very far beyond the physical person of the beloved. It finds its deepest meaning in his spiritual being, his inner self. Whether or not he is actually present, whether or not he is still alive at all, ceases somehow to be of importance.
- If there is a meaning in life at all, then there must be a meaning in suffering. Suffering is an ineradicable part of life, even as fate and death. Without suffering and death human life cannot be complete.
- Emotion, which is suffering, ceases to be suffering as soon as we form a clear and precise picture of it.
- What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for a worthwhile goal, a freely chosen task.
- When a man finds that it is his destiny to suffer, he will have to accept his suffering as his task; his single and unique task. He will have to acknowledge the fact that even in suffering he is unique and alone in the universe. No one can relieve him of his suffering or suffer in his place. His unique opportunity lies in the way in which he bears his burden.
“Don’t aim at success — the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side-effect of one’s dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one’s surrender to a person other than oneself.”
- Only slowly could these men be guided back to the commonplace truth that no one has the right to do wrong, not even if wrong has been done to them.
“Live as if you were living already for the second time and as if you had acted the first time as wrongly as you are about to act now!”
- In some way, suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning, such as the meaning of a sacrifice.
Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln
- His success in dealing with the strong egos of the men in his cabinet suggests that in the hands of a truly great politician the qualities we generally associate with decency and morality — kindness, sensitivity, compassion, honesty, and empathy — can also be impressive political resources.
- Mental health, contemporary psychiatrists tell us, consists of the ability to adapt to the inevitable stresses and misfortunes of life. It does not mean freedom from anxiety and depression, but only the ability to cope with these afflictions in a healthy way.
- As he explored the wonders of literature and the history of the country, the young Lincoln, already conscious of his own power, developed ambitions far beyond the expectations of his family and neighbors. It was through literature that he was able to transcend his surroundings.
- That Lincoln, after winning the presidency, made the unprecedented decision to incorporate his eminent rivals into his political family, the cabinet, was evidence of a profound self-confidence and a first indication of what would prove to others a most unexpected greatness.
- Lincoln understood that the greatest challenge for a leader in a democratic society is to educate public opinion. “With public sentiment, nothing can fail; without it nothing can succeed,” he said. “Consequently he who moulds public sentiment, goes deeper than he who enacts statutes or pronounces decisions.”
- “Everything,” a journalist observed, “tended to represent the home of a man who has battled hard with the fortunes of life, and whose hard experience had taught him to enjoy whatever of success belongs to him, rather in solid substance than in showy display.”
- Though Lincoln desired success as fiercely as any of his rivals, he did not allow his quest for office to consume the kindness and openheartedness with which he treated supporters and rivals alike, nor alter his steady commitment to the antislavery cause.
- Ambition is a passion, at once strong and insidious, and is very apt to cheet a man out of his happiness and his true respectability of character.”
- “Only people who are capable of loving strongly,” Leo Tolstoy wrote, “can also suffer great sorrow; but this same necessity of loving serves to counteract their grief and heal them.”
- “Having hope,” writes Daniel Goleman in his study of emotional intelligence, “means that one will not give in to overwhelming anxiety, a defeatist attitude, or depression in the face of difficult challenges or setbacks.” Hope is “more than the sunny view that everything will turn out all right”; it is “believing you have the will and the way to accomplish your goals.”
When Breath Becomes Air
- Paul Kalanithi’s career in neurosurgery changed in unplanned ways, and his terminal cancer diagnosis made his life even more potent.
- Human knowledge is never contained in one person. It grows from the relationships we create between each other and the world, and still it is never complete.
- There is a moment, a cusp, when the sum of gathered experience is worn down by the details of living. We are never so wise as when we live in this moment.
- Although these last few years have been wrenching and difficult — sometimes almost impossible — they have also been the most beautiful and profound of my life, requiring the daily act of holding life and death, joy and pain in balance and exploring new depths of gratitude and love.
- Years ago, it had occurred to me that Darwin and Nietzsche agreed on one thing: the defining characteristic of the organism is striving.
- Openness to human relationality does not mean revealing grand truths from the apse; it means meeting patients where they are, in the narthex or nave, and bringing them as far as you can.
- When there’s no place for the scalpel, words are the surgeon’s only tool.
- When you come to one of the many moments in life where you must give an account of yourself, provide a ledger of what you have been, and done, and meant to the world, do not, I pray, discount that you filled a dying man’s days with a sated joy, a joy unknown to me in all my prior years, a joy that does not hunger for more and more but rests, satisfied. In this time, right now, that is an enormous thing.
- You can’t ever reach perfection, but you can believe in an asymptote toward which you are ceaselessly striving.
- If your life was cut short, you might spend your remaining days doing something meaningful.
The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression
This time, I’m cheating a little. For anyone interested in learning more about mental health and depression, this book is a must-read. It is fascinating, enlightening, and heartwarming. This is a long read, but it’s well worth it. For those who don’t want to read a book that long, his TED talk is very interesting as well.
Please let me know what you think. I hope you find this list helpful. 🙏
