Quotes on arun.zechariah

The Peace of Wild Things

Sun, 28 Jan 2024 02:16:01 +0000

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Every dog must have his day

Sun, 15 Oct 2023 10:25:01 +0000

Every dog must have his day.

—Jonathan Swift

Originally posted on X.

Our minds are hurt more often by overeating than by hunger

Sun, 11 Apr 2021 06:30:26 +0000

Like our stomachs, our minds are hurt more often by overeating than by hunger.
(Ut stomachis sic ingeniis nausea sepius nocuit quam fames.)

—Petrarch

Originally posted on X.

If you’re not prepared to be wrong

Fri, 01 Feb 2013 18:35:29 +0000

If you’re not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never come up with anything original.

—Ken Robinson

Originally posted on X.

There are only 10 types of people in this world

Thu, 03 May 2012 04:04:21 +0000

There are only 10 types of people in this world: those who understand binary and those who don't.

Originally posted on X.

Starbucks’ 40th anniversary drink

Wed, 28 Sep 2011 01:59:45 +0000

For it's 40th anniversary, Starbucks has a new drink coming out. It's sugar-free, fat-free and has no whipped cream. It's called coffee!

Originally posted on X.

Great Minds

Sun, 04 Jan 2009 04:31:00 +0000

“Great minds discuss ideas; Average minds discuss events; Small minds discuss people.”

—Eleanor Roosevelt

Quote of the day

Sat, 03 Jan 2009 03:09:00 +0000

“He cannot be a gentleman which loveth not a dog.”

—John Northbrooke

Simplify, simplify.

Mon, 18 Aug 2008 20:58:00 +0000

“Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify.”

—Henry David Thoreau, via zenhabits

Childhood

Mon, 19 May 2008 07:25:00 +0000

“If you carry your childhood with you, you never become older.”

—Tom Stoppard

Sleep Deprivation

Thu, 15 May 2008 00:03:00 +0000

“Six hours sleep for a man, seven for a woman and eight for a fool.”

—Napoleon Bonaparte

False bravado .. as any new father can attest to 🙂

Graceful Simplicity

Wed, 05 Mar 2008 00:50:00 +0000

“The point of an economy, even a dynamic economy, is not to have more and more; it is to liberate us from the economic—to provide a material platform from which we may go on to build the good life. That’s the alternative American dream.”

—Jerome M. Segal, Graceful Simplicity, via No Impact Man

Simplicity

Tue, 08 Jan 2008 10:22:00 +0000

“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.”

—Leonardo da Vinci

Possibilities

Fri, 30 Nov 2007 04:42:00 +0000

“In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities,
in the expert’s mind there are few.”

—Shunryu Suzuki

One to think about :)

Sun, 07 Oct 2007 07:41:00 +0000

“Never kick a fresh turd on a hot day.”

—Harry S. Truman

Dividing Line ..

Thu, 30 Aug 2007 00:08:00 +0000

“The line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being.”

—Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago

Resolve to ..

Wed, 22 Aug 2007 22:51:00 +0000

“Whatever the tasks, do them slowly
with ease,
in mindfulness,
so not do any tasks with the goal
of getting them over with.
Resolve to each job in a relaxed way,
with all your attention.”

—Thich Nhat Hanh, via Zen Habits

Kick in the pants :)

Mon, 13 Aug 2007 22:21:00 +0000

“If you could kick the person in the pants responsible for most of your trouble, you wouldn’t sit for a month.”

—Theodore Roosevelt

How will the water taste?

Wed, 01 Aug 2007 00:00:00 +0000

… a story about an old Chinese man at a water-well. He lowers a bucket tied to a rope, and slowly pulls the water up, hand over hand. A young man comes by holding a pulley and proceeds to explain how it would make the old man’s work easier.

The old man says, “If I use a device like this, my mind will think itself clever. With a cunning mind, I will no longer put my heart into what I am doing. If my heart is not in my work, my work will be joyless. When the work is joyless, how do you think the water will taste?”

The use of living

Sat, 30 Jun 2007 11:35:00 +0000

“What is the use of living, if it be not to strive for noble causes and to make this muddled world a better place for those who will live in it after we are gone? How else can we put ourselves in harmonious relation with the great verities and consolations of the infinite and the eternal? And I avow my faith that we are marching towards better days. Humanity will not be cast down. We are going on swinging bravely forward along the grand high road and already behind the distant mountains is the promise of the sun.”

Whole Earth Catalog – Last Issue

Sat, 09 Jun 2007 02:10:00 +0000

—Whole Earth Catalog, last issue

Stay Foolish. Stay Hungry.

Sat, 09 Jun 2007 01:57:00 +0000

“Stay hungry. Stay foolish.”

—Steve Jobs, Stanford Commencement Address

End result

Sat, 09 Jun 2007 01:02:00 +0000

“Don’t confuse activity for progress.”

—Jonathan Schwartz, via GigaOM

Let the “necessary” speak.

Thu, 07 Jun 2007 23:37:00 +0000

“The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak.”

—Hans Hofmann

Measure and manage

Tue, 05 Jun 2007 03:26:00 +0000

“What gets measured gets managed.”

—Peter Drucker

Simplify, Simplify

Tue, 01 May 2007 22:44:00 +0000

“As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler; solitude will not be solitude, poverty will not be poverty, nor weakness weakness.”

—Henry David Thoreau

Idea of Infinite Regression

Wed, 14 Mar 2007 20:29:00 +0000

A well-known scientist (some say it was Bertrand Russell) once gave a public lecture on astronomy. He described how the Earth orbits around the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the centre of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy. At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said: “What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise.” The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, “What is the tortoise standing on?” “You’re very clever, young man, very clever,” said the old lady. “But it’s turtles all the way down!”

Magic

Wed, 17 Jan 2007 02:01:00 +0000

“… any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

—Arthur C. Clarke’s third law

To strive for ..

Wed, 03 Jan 2007 00:44:00 +0000

… sincerity, serenity, integrity and the absence of glibness …

—Henry Kissinger (eulogy to Gerald Ford)

End of the wandering star

Sat, 23 Dec 2006 00:30:00 +0000

A child in a foul stable,
Where the beasts feed and foam;
Only where He was homeless
Are you and I at home:
We have hands that fashion and heads that know,
But our hearts we lost—how long ago!
In a place no chart nor ship can show
Under the sky’s dome.

To an open house in the evening
Home shall men come,
To an older place than Eden
And a taller town than Rome.
To the end of the way of the wandering star,
To the things that cannot be and that are,
To the place where God was homeless
And all men are at home.

Where is the life ..

Sat, 18 Nov 2006 00:49:00 +0000

Where is the life we have lost in the living?
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?
The cycles of heaven in twenty centuries
bring us farther from God and nearer to dust.

—T. S. Eliot