Wisdom Quotes

"Be selective about whom you take on as friends, colleagues, and neighbors. The world is full of agreeable and talented folk. The key is to keep company only with people who uplift you, whose presence calls forth your best. But remember that our moral influence is a two-way street, and we should thus make sure by our own thoughts, words, and deeds to be a positive influence on those we deal with. The real test of personal excellence lies in the attention we give to the often neglected small details of our conduct. Make it your business to draw out the best in others by being an exemplar yourself."

- Epictetus

"Every hour be firmly resolved…to accomplish the work at hand with fitting and unaffected dignity, goodwill, freedom, justice. Banish from your thoughts all other considerations. This is possible if you perform each act as if it were your last, rejecting every frivolous distraction, every denial of the rule of reason, every pretentious gesture, vain show, and whining complaint against the decrees of fate. Do you see what little is required of a man to live a well-tempered and god-fearing life? Obey these precepts, and the gods will ask nothing more (II.5). Your days are numbered. Use them to throw open the windows of your soul to the sun. If you do not, the sun will soon set, and you with it. (II.4)"

- Marcus Aurelius in The Emperor’s Handbook

"Plan the flight and fly the plan, but don’t fall in love with the plan. Be open to a changing world and let go of the plan when necessary so that you can make a new plan. Then as the world and the plan both go through their book of changes, you will always be ready to do the next right thing."

- Laurence Gonzales

"The Moon will guide you through the night with her brightness, but she will always dwell in the darkness in order to be seen."

- Shannon L. Alder

"What other body could pull an entire ocean from shore to shore? The Moon is faithful to its nature and its power is never diminished."

- Deng Ming-Dao

"Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the Moon, and the truth."

- Buddha

"The Moon is faithful to its nature, and its power is never diminished."

- Deng Ming-Dao

"But even when the Moon looks like it's waning... it's actually never changing shape. Don't ever forget that."

- Ai Yazawa

"The Moon just reflects the sunlight. Stars are the ones that can shine by themselves like the Sun. The Moon just sponges off the Sun and shines."

- Hong Jung-Eun

"The moon casts a different face every day. Yet the moon is always the moon. It is always whole. Always reflective."

- Thomas Lloyd Qualls

"When you act on your priority, you’ll automatically go out of balance, giving more time to one thing over another. The challenge then doesn’t become one of not going out of balance, for in fact you must. The challenge becomes how long you stay on your priority. To be able to address your priorities outside of work, be clear about your most important work priority so you can get it done. Then go home and be clear about your priorities there so you can get back to work. Purpose has the power to shape our lives only in direct proportion to the power of the priority we connect it to. Purpose without priority is powerless."

- Gary Keller, Jay Papasan in The ONE Thing

""Compromise is the best and cheapest lawyer.""

- Robert Louis Stevenson

""A jury consists of twelve persons chosen to decide who has the better lawyer.""

- Robert Frost

"Friendship is the hardest thing in the world to explain. It's not something you learn in school. But if you haven't learned the meaning of friendship, you really haven't learned anything."

- Muhammad Ali

"Nothing you do for children is ever wasted."

- Garrison Keillor

"Look at the stars. The great kings of the past look down on us from those stars."

- Mufasa

"I would trade all of my technology for an afternoon with Socrates."

- Steve Jobs

"We will always have STEM with us. Some things will drop out of the public eye and will go away, but there will always be science, engineering, and technology. And there will always, always be mathematics."

- Katherine Johnson

"By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is the noblest; Second, by imitation, which is the easiest; and third, by experience, which is the bitterest."

- Confucius

"Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re gonna get."

- Forrest Gump

"Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer."

- Sun Tzu

"A wise man can learn more from his enemies than a fool from his friends."

- Niki Lauda

"The art of Jiu-Jitsu is worth more in every way than all of our athletics combined."

- President Theodore Roosevelt

"There is nothing unpremeditated, nothing neglected by God. His unsleeping eye beholds all things."

- Saint Basil

"It is only in the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."

- The Little Prince

"The deepest benefits of Jiu-Jitsu come off the mat. It encourages a worldview based upon the idea of rational problem-solving. Jiu-Jitsu is all about solving problems that are rapidly changing under stress, and that gives you an ability to identify the crux of the problem in front of you, even in a stressful situation, and adapt your body and tactics to overcome that problem and continue overcoming it as the problem itself changes. It encourages you to use a very rational trial-and-error method, basically, the same method that science uses to overcome these problems. So it gives you this sort of problem-solving mindset, which I think applies throughout life itself."

- John Danaher

"No matter how stressful the situation you find yourself to be in, realize that success will come in the form of technical solutions to problems, not appeals to our emotional side"

- John Danaher

"For jiu-jitsu, the smarter you are, the better you understand the leverage and positions and the middle."

- Renzo Gracie

"Mornings are blessings giving you the gift of smarts wrapped in sunny gold."

"Morning brings opportunity to gather pearls of wisdom."