Viktorija > Viktorija's Quotes

“People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own souls. One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.”
― Carl Jung, Psychology and Alchemy

“After each interview a job seeker should achieve some clearer understanding of their target opportunity, but it is much more efficient to try and have at least part of your wish list nailed down before burning up vacation days and raising suspicion with your current employer.”
― Dave Fecak, Job Tips For Geeks: The Job Search

“It is equally important to have a rundown of details or characteristics that you will absolutely not accept in a new position. This could be your dealbreakers list.”
― Dave Fecak, Job Tips For Geeks: The Job Search

“Never be offended that your new circumstances require you to change. Be humble and receptive. Rather than simply going where you need to go, be willing to become who you need to become. You”
― Benjamin P. Hardy, Slipstream Time Hacking: How to Cheat Time, Live More, And Enhance Happiness

“The realistic goal to be attained through spiritual practice is not some permanent state of enlightenment that admits of no further efforts, but a capacity to be free in this moment, in the midst of whatever is happening. If you can do that, you have already solved most of the problems you will encounter in life.”
― Sam Harris

“If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.”
― Carl Sagan, Cosmos

“For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.”
― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

“For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love.”
― Carl Sagan

“It pays to keep an open mind, but not so open your brains fall out.”
― Carl Sagan

“The universe is a pretty big place. If it's just us, seems like an awful waste of space.”
― Carl Sagan, Contact

“We are a way for the cosmos to know itself.”
― Carl Sagan, Cosmos

“Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.”
― Carl Sagan

“Every time we become aware of a thought, as opposed to being lost in a thought, we experience that opening of the mind.”
― Joseph Goldstein, Insight Meditation: The Practice of Freedom

“Imagine holding on to a hot burning coal. You would not fear letting go of it. In fact, once you noticed that you were holding on, you would probably drop it quickly. But we often do not recognize how we hold on to suffering. It seems to hold on to us. This is our practice: becoming aware of how suffering arises in our mind and of how we become identified with it, and learning to let it go. We learn through simple and direct observation, seeing the process over and over again until we understand.”
― Joseph Goldstein, Insight Meditation: The Practice of Freedom

“A poet once said, 'The whole universe is in a glass of wine.' We will probably never know in what sense he meant it, for poets do not write to be understood. But it is true that if we look at a glass of wine closely enough we see the entire universe. There are the things of physics: the twisting liquid which evaporates depending on the wind and weather, the reflection in the glass; and our imagination adds atoms. The glass is a distillation of the earth's rocks, and in its composition we see the secrets of the universe's age, and the evolution of stars. What strange array of chemicals are in the wine? How did they come to be? There are the ferments, the enzymes, the substrates, and the products. There in wine is found the great generalization; all life is fermentation. Nobody can discover the chemistry of wine without discovering, as did Louis Pasteur, the cause of much disease. How vivid is the claret, pressing its existence into the consciousness that watches it! If our small minds, for some convenience, divide this glass of wine, this universe, into parts -- physics, biology, geology, astronomy, psychology, and so on -- remember that nature does not know it! So let us put it all back together, not forgetting ultimately what it is for. Let it give us one more final pleasure; drink it and forget it all!”
― Richard P. Feynman

“I can live with doubt and uncertainty and not knowing. I think it is much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers that might be wrong. If we will only allow that, as we progress, we remain unsure, we will leave opportunities for alternatives. We will not become enthusiastic for the fact, the knowledge, the absolute truth of the day, but remain always uncertain … In order to make progress, one must leave the door to the unknown ajar.”
― Richard P. Feynman

“The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“Accept the things to which fate binds you, and love the people with whom fate brings you together,but do so with all your heart.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“Whenever you are about to find fault with someone, ask yourself the following question: What fault of mine most nearly resembles the one I am about to criticize?”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“Begin each day by telling yourself: Today I shall be meeting with interference, ingratitude, insolence, disloyalty, ill-will, and selfishness – all of them due to the offenders’ ignorance of what is good or evil.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“You always own the option of having no opinion. There is never any need to get worked up or to trouble your soul about things you can't control. These things are not asking to be judged by you. Leave them alone.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“Receive without conceit, release without struggle.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“It is in your power to withdraw yourself whenever you desire. Perfect tranquility within consists in the good ordering of the mind, the realm of your own.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“Programs must be written for people to read, and only incidentally for machines to execute.”
― Harold Abelson, Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs