Why are you just sitting around reading random inspirational quotes, go apply them... is something I tell myself whenever I revisit this page, but maybe quotes are actually important. I don't know, words have a weird way of feeling simultaneously pointless and insignificant yet extremely profound and inspirational. But what does it mean to be inspired? Is it just a feeling, or is it actually taking action? Can we really say we were inspired if we do not enact those principles in our daily lives?
I think it is important to enact some ideas into our lives which we resonate with the most, but recognize that exporing quotes without action also brings awareness and perspective.
These are the pieces of advice that I will always appreciate being reminded of. Without such guiding principles, I think it is easier to do things we would regret.
Misc. Quotes
The math is supposed to help us understand reality not replace it - madhuu.ghimirey in response to an Instagram reel
Pride is not the opposite of shame, but its source. True humility is the only antidote to shame. - Uncle Iroh
Everyone has two lives, and the second starts when you realize you have just one. - Confucius
Meet me in the middle, says the unjust man.
You take a step toward him. He takes a step back.
Meet me in the middle, says the unjust man.
Beware of requests for compromise when you are asking for justice and the other side is asking for consent to continue. - A. R. Moxon
Everything looks or sounds or feels or tastes the same until you're willing to understand the differences. - DNM
In all of the universes where monkeys are destined to write Hamlet, I realized that i am not that monkey who successfully writes it. We all would like to think we are though. - Brandon
Pirates are evil? The Marines are righteous? These terms have always changed throughout the course of history! Kids who have never seen peace and kids who have never seen war have different values! Those who stand at the top determine what's wrong and what's right! This very place is neutral ground! Justice will prevail, you say? But of course it will! Whoever wins this war becomes justice! - Donquixote Doflamingo
Educate the children and it won't be necessary to punish the men. - Pythagoras
I like people talking nonsense. Talking nonsense is humanity's only privilege over the rest of creation. If you talk nonsense, you'll find your way to the truth! Talking nonsense is what makes me human. No one ever found his way to the truth without first getting things wrong fourteen times, or even a hundred and fourteen times, and that's a good thing in its way; the trouble is we're not even capable of getting things wrong with our own brains! You can talk nonsense to me, if it's nonsense of your own, and I'll kiss you for it. Talking nonsense of your own-that's almost better than talking someone else's truth; in the first case you're human, in the second you're nothing but a parrot! Truth won't go away, but life can get choked up; we've seen that happen. Well, what are we now? In science, progress, thought, invention, ideals, desires, liberalism, judgement, experience, and all, all, all, all, all of it, we're every one of us, without exception, still stuck in the first, pre-preparatory class of high school! We've got fond of living off other people's ideas, and now we're addicted to it! Isn't that right? Isn't it?' cried Razumikhin, shaking and squeezing both ladies' arms. 'Isn't that so?' - Dostoevsky
Hmm...
That being said, don't always avoid being a parrot. Parrots are great things when they speak ideas they believe in. It isn't about speaking nonsense to avoid being a parrot, it's about avoiding miscommunication. Strictly avoiding being a parrot without consideration for the good things in life makes us overly contrarian and cynical.
Similar rhetoric here:
Teleport! I just think this is agreeable because some people (like me) feel a bit butt hurt about giving up a bit of individuality for the cohesion that comes from being in a group, but we need to recognize that it
is a tradeoff and a good one at that. I liked sumanta_samadder's response in the comments:
There is nothing wrong and right to this. Individuals bring beauty, and together, [they bring] unity. Sometimes, individual[ism] make[s] you selfish and lonely, and sometimes together makes you lose yourself a huge amount of it. So I always think life is supposed to be balanced.
What horrifies me most is
the idea of being useless:
well-educated, brilliantly promising,
and fading out into an
indifferent middle-age.
- Victoria Lucas
I think that we suck at solving our own problems, but are kinda awesome at solving each other's problems. - u/JerryGrim
so just go make something. make art with your grief. you'll feel better. - mubikishore
Talent is a factor. But training and focus are what truly define someone’s success. - Ahsoka Tano
Ludwig Boltzmann, who spent much of his life studying statistical mechanics, died in 1906, by his own hand. Paul Ehrenfest, carrying on the work, died similarly in 1933. Now it's our turn to study statistical mechanics. - David L. Goodstein
All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages.
- Shakespeare (I actually like the whole passage, especially the Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything line)
I was ashamed of myself when I realised life was a costume party and I attended with my real face - Franz Kafka
Did you know: In one's afterlife, one is condemned to finding counter-examples to all false statements made in life?
Hence the advice: Start early! - Alexander Givental's personal/professional homepage
Inside every cynical person is a disappointed idealist. - George Carlin
Mathematicians are like Frenchmen: whatever you tell them they translate
into their own language and forthwith it becomes something entirely different. - J.W. Goethe
I think this is the essence of mathematics, learning to translate between your own personal language and the language of the general body of work on a subject. In the process, your personal language and intuition evolves, and you can contribute personal intuition to humanity's body of knowledge. That's the kind of mathematician I want to be.
Maya Angelou
If you have only one smile in you, give it to the people you love. Don't be surly at home, then go out in the street and start grinning 'Good morning' at total strangers.
I did then what I knew how to do. Now that I know better, I do better.
What you're supposed to do when you don't like a thing is change it. If you can't change it, change the way you think about it. Don't complain.
The desire to reach for the stars is ambitious. The desire to reach hearts is wise.
Richard Feynman
I have a friend who's an artist and has sometimes taken a view which I don't agree with very well. He'll hold up a flower and say "look how beautiful it is," and I'll agree. Then he says "I as an artist can see how beautiful this is but you as a scientist take this all apart and it becomes a dull thing," and I think that he's kind of nutty. First of all, the beauty that he sees is available to other people and to me too, I believe. Although I may not be quite as refined aesthetically as he is ... I can appreciate the beauty of a flower. At the same time, I see much more about the flower than he sees. I could imagine the cells in there, the complicated actions inside, which also have a beauty. I mean it's not just beauty at this dimension, at one centimeter; there's also beauty at smaller dimensions, the inner structure, also the processes. The fact that the colors in the flower evolved in order to attract insects to pollinate it is interesting; it means that insects can see the color. It adds a question: does this aesthetic sense also exist in the lower forms? Why is it aesthetic? All kinds of interesting questions which the science knowledge only adds to the excitement, the mystery and the awe of a flower. It only adds. I don't understand how it subtracts.
You have no responsibility to live up to what other people think you ought to accomplish. I have no responsibility to be like they expect me to be. It's their mistake, not my failing.
Fall in love with some activity, and do it! Nobody ever figures out what life is all about, and it doesn't matter. Explore the world. Nearly everything is really interesting if you go into it deeply enough. Work as hard and as much as you want to on the things you like to do the best. Don't think about what you want to be, but what you want to do. Keep up some kind of a minimum with other things so that society doesn't stop you from doing anything at all.
Study hard what interests you the most in the most undisciplined, irreverent and original manner possible.
Emmy Noether
My methods are really methods of working and thinking; this is why they have crept in everywhere anonymously.
If one proves the equality of two numbers a and b by showing first that “a is less than or equal to b” and then “a is greater than or equal to b”, it is unfair, one should instead show that they are really equal by disclosing the inner ground for their equality.
Albert Einstein
Sometimes it's a bit awkward to see Einstein quotes because some websites tend to falsely attribute to him things he may have never said. Then again, it doesn't really matter anyway.
Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more
violent. It takes a touch of genius - and a lot of courage - to move
in the opposite direction.
Imagination is more important than knowledge.
Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.
Pokemon
On your travels, we hope that you will meet countless people and, through them, achieve personal growth. - Professor Oak
Oak's words echoed... There's a time and place for everything, but not now. - Pokemon Soulsilver