What phrases of wisdom have really stuck with you?
I have 3 but would LOVE to hear more....
You can always have more but you can't have less
This one's from my dad and it really stuck with me. You can, and really should, apply this to any intoxicant.
On the pitch is off the streets
This is about getting restless kids, or kids who might be in a bad situation, into sports.
The axe forgets but the tree remembers
Translation on this one: People who cause hurt are less likely to remember than those it affected.
237 replies
Only break one law at a time.
For example; If you have an AI executive tied up in the trunk of your car, make sure the tail lights all work.
My friend refers to this as - Don't be stupid while you're being stupid.
Ooh, along this line:
No matter what you do, pay your accountant and attorney first.
HAHAHA. I actually have this one baked into my consciousness. I'm a little more "don't speed if your tax is out of date" though. Think I need to up my game.
I always say "If your tags are expired, don't have a body in the trunk!" which I think splits the difference between both examples.
This one was taught almost verbatim to me by a guy who sold a lot of drugs in college and saw a lot of people in the business get bagged. He never did though.
I have several that I live my life by. Being prompted has caused me to forget all of them
I hear that. Sure look, if you think of any of them in a months time I'll still be glad of the learning.
It is only when a mosquito lands on your testicles that you realize there is a way to solve problems without using violence.
This reminds of "To a hammer every problem looks like a nail."
Please do not nail or hammer your testicles. And above all else, don’t google that.
Unfortunately I am familiar with the pain Olympics.
"You do not treat a man like a gentleman because he is. You treat a man like a gentleman because you are."
Feel like this clashes with "respect is earned, not demanded" which I feel more strongly
Edit: That said, I do also believe that people should be treated with respect by default.
Many (maybe even most?) adages have an opposite.
"Reach for the stars", but "sky's the limit".
"Knowledge is power," but "ignorance is bliss."
"Absence makes the heart grow fonder," but "out of sight, out of mind."
"Better safe than sorry," but "nothing ventured, nothing gained."
"The pen is mightier than the sword," but "actions speak louder than words."
"Great minds think alike," but "fools seldom differ."
"Too many cooks spoil the broth," but "many hands make light work."
This is missing a Carlin punchline to it and a message, but I can envision him saying it.
Not really.
Take the first one. Someone can work hard to improve themselves, but have a realistic idea of how far they can go. Maybe I'll take a chance and open a hot dog stand of my own; I shouldn't expect to outdo Burger King or KFC.
You can take risks safely. A scuba diver can explore a cave with a trained buddy and proper equipment, or just swim in alone.
All the people who fought in the Tojan War are long dead, but Homer's words still live on.
Most of those don't mean opposite things, though. They aren't describing incompatible concepts. Even, "great minds think alike" and, "fools seldom differ" are more comments about different contexts than opposite meaning.
Right, and that's kinda my point. I said that there are opposites, not that they don't have any value at all. Context is key.
They are literally, technically, definitionally not opposites if they carry unrelated meanings.
I don't think they all do, but we clearly disagree.
Yes, not all of them are wholly unrelated, as already said. That doesn't make them all valid opposites.
Sky is the limit means nothing is impossible, so they say pretty much the same thing about aiming high.
That one was a bit tongue in cheek, yeah.
Yeah, it's funny like when people say "Jumbo shrimp is an oxymoron." Like, ha ha, yeah, shrimp can also mean small person, but the animals called shrimp come in different sizes, so we need size words if we want to classify them. So it's not in fact a contradiction, but it's a really funny joke. Same thing here.
I think that there's a fundamental disconnect between respect for somebody, and how you treat them. How you treat them reveals everything about you, and not much about them. For example, ICE goons don't respect the immigrants that they see as breaking the law. But their, unhinged, gleeful violence comes from within their own disordered brains. We can't tell anything at all about the people ICE targets by the fact that agents abuse them, but we can be 100% sure that the agents are psychopathic shitheels. "Respect" depends on your point of view, while behavior is tangible.
Put another way, nobody can make you behave a certain way, and if somebody doesn't earn your respect, set a boundary and remove them from your life. Don't pretend that others force you to behave a certain way.
You can be disrespectful as fuck in a gentlemanly way. That shit is better than heroin to people with generational wealth.
Respect is earned, but all people deserve to be treated with decency by default.
You're 100% right.
Initial respect or friendliness should be the default behaviour until proven otherwise.
This one is stellar.
In short: Don't worry about it.
In long: If you have a problem, you can either do something about it or you can't. If you can do something about it, do that thing instead of worrying. If you can't, worrying just gives you an additional problem.
This is essentially the Serenity prayer as used in 12-step programs:
God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can, and Wisdom to know the difference.
That's stoicism in a nutshell. That and amor fati.
Essentially what you said, but I'd like to phrase it the way a counselor said it to me when I was under a lot of stress at work. Stress is the gap between our expectation and reality. Say you expect to be/produce/achieve/whatever 100%, but you are only capable of achieving 80%. The stress you experience is that 20% gap. Change your expectations to meet your reality and that stress will be resolved.
Now, it may still be that others might still want or expect that 20% from you, but that's their problem and their stress. If you cannot produce it anyway (which created your stress in the first place), existing in the stress-gap clearly won't make you able to do it anyway.
This is a bit of a trap, because it kind of breeds anxiety.
Most people who are worried are aware that logically, it is unhelpful. You can phrase it however you like but if someone could stop worrying, they would.
Human's are hard wired to "worry" about threats. It's how your ancestors avoided being eaten by a sabre toothed tiger long enough to be someone's ancestor. Worry is in our nature.
As you accrue things you're not worrying about, and as you don't worry about them over time, it can create extraordinary tension which in my case and many others presents as anxiety - an overwhelming and unreasonable response to a threat.
So for loads of people, trying not to worry kinda works until it doesn't.
There's loads of healthier ways to manage worry and anxiety, that I won't try to summarise here, but ACT and CBT are good places to start.
There's a saying in Chinese. It rhymes in Chinese (which makes it so much cooler) but the translated version is this:
Essentially, be wary of how much you're devoting to your work, because it doesn't matter how successful you are, you will never get your life back
There's another one that I find to be very relevant with the times:
It's a descriptivist version of the English saying "we'll cross that bridge when we get there." Essentially, problems have a way of sorting themselves out when things get desperate enough
Time is the only commodity that you can't make more it. Make sure you spend it well.
Love these.
Just want to clarify that "we'll cross that bridge when we get there" is closer to "work on one problem at a time" than implying the problem will sort itself out.
Isn't that what I meant? English saying is a prescriptivist version of the Chinese song; Chinese saying is a descriptivist version of the English saying
To be clear, the Chinese saying isn't implying that the problem will naturally go away. It's implying that people will be driven to solve the problem as the deadline approaches
Love both of these. Thank you!
Perfection is the enemy of progress
I heard it as, "don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good." Ironically, I heard it from a friend who lived his life striving for perfect, and died of a treatable medical condition because his wife's HMO wasn't good enough for him.
We say "perfect is the enemy of good." Even simpler.
Here's a few that stuck with me over the years:
"A circle looks at a square and sees a badly made circle." --Jeff VanderMeer
"Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire." --Gustav Mahler
"If you trust in yourself. . .and believe in your dreams. . .and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy." - - Sir Terry Pratchett
That's a great quote by Gustav Mahler, thank you!
Ignore negative people, they have a problem for every solution. When the wind changes, some will build walls, others build windmills. When God created man, she was only joking.
I love all of these but OMG really love the first one.
I've been trying to live more by the first one since I've realized how easy and safe negativity is. Just be a jerkass cynic and you'll never have to actually try and change something for the better. You'll still be disappointed and bitter in the end, of course. It guarantees the worst outcomes but at least you won't be hurt from trying.
Reflexively: Ignore positive people, they are incapable of comprehending or acknowledging problems.
Sorry, but the previous comment taught me to ignore you.
Ah, but you see I am neither negative nor positive.
I am in fact a graviton, and therefore not a charge carrier.
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man." — George Bernard Shaw
You have to do something poorly before you can do it well.
An extension to this:
This part is far more difficult than it sounds.
dude. for real.
famed new york maker, jimmy diresta has a version of this “you go to school on the first one”
Haven't seen it yet.
You can make no mistakes and still lose. That is not failure, that is life. -Picard
Brush your teeth.
No.
The most dangerous minority are the Rich.
That last one we need more people saying.
Moving the body moves the mind.
It could always be worse.
The future will always surprise you.
At first, I thought that first one was about moving a dead body.
All three of these are... interesting from the perspective of a paralyzed person
“A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.” - Douglas Adams
Oh, I thought of another, which I’ve said to my kid hundreds of times over the years:
‘It’s better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it’, typically with things like an umbrella or water.
My parents used that one a lot for condoms.
I'm sorry that's how you had to find out that you were an unwanted pregnancy.
Another great thing about abortions being readily available: I know that it was an unwanted pregnancy (failed contraception), but I also know I was a wanted child, because they could have easily terminated but chose to keep me.
Knowing I had been an unwanted pregnancy and a forced birth would have messed me up.
That's how you make a hoarder.
A variation on the same theme: I'd rather be looking at it than looking for it.
jimmy diresta again, woot
If it's your job to eat a frog every day, eat it for breakfast. If it's your job to eat two frogs, eat the big one first.
All you can do is your best, and your best will always be good enough.
Just because something is old doesn't mean it's obsolete, and just because something is obsolete doesn't mean it's ineffective.
"The only decision you should do when you are angry is to stop being angry." Timothy Zahn
"The graveyard is filled with people who had the right of way"
I've got some.
"Comparison is the thief of joy."
The classic weekend/party safety brief
We have a few addendums in my circles.
A man should be in the newspaper three times, when he is born, when he is wed, and when he dies. (Ron Swanson)
Never do anything you would be afraid to explain to the paramedics.
(Addressed to my college age relatives, I would always pick them up, the folks dont need to know, you do have to tell the guy scraping your sorry ass off the pavement what you broke)
If you are arrested, you become a Pokémon named Lawyer.
You forgot "Don't beat your wife, your husband, your kids or anyone else's."
The purpose of a system is what it does. Or The wizards 5th rule: Mind people's actions over words.
When someone tells you who they are, believe them.
And last: Trust your gut.
Edit bonus after reading others responses;
Don't let perfection get in the way of good enough.
All you've got are your actions, man, and don't forget, your words are your actions too.
You put something out there, there's consequences.
Preach, girl.
When driving, you can say "I should have gone," as many times as you want, but "I shouldn't have gone." may be the last thing you say.
Also, a bad driver never misses their turn.
your amygdala is stupid and always faster than your frontal cortex
No, that's stupid beca-
Ahhhhhhh, yeah, you're right.
Assumption is the mother of all fuckups.
when you assume you make an ass out of u and me
...unless you fuck up by not assuming anything
AKA being autistic
"The enemy of good is perfect."
Endlessly chasing perfect can destroy something that was already good.
A few from the file I keep:
In theory there is no difference between theory and practice, but in practice there is. - Jan van de Snepscheut
I would rather have questions that cannot be answered than answers that cannot be questioned. - Richard Feynman
Give a man a mask and he'll show you his true face. - Oscar Wilde (paraphrased)
You can’t go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending. - C.S. Lewis
Magic is science you can’t explain. Science is magic you can. - My Daughter
You are under no obligation to be the same person you were five minutes ago. - Alan Watts
What you do to achieve your goals must never become more important than the goals themselves. - Anonymous
Feynman's quote goes HARD. full on 1 sentence diss track to authoritarianism!
Yes, including the authoritarianism of social intimidation.
Wow. These are really good.
"I don't know" is a valid scientific statement and (hopefully) the beginning of wisdom
True. I heard this long ago. I also heard this from the same person.
Doubt is a virtue and the beginning of all wisdom.
The US signs contracts in pencil.
Nowadays, it’s disappearing ink. It doesn’t have to be erased; it erases itself.
Its a recent quote from Canadian PM Mark Carney after the US tried to trick and pressure us into signing away our soverignty
"I could stick my head up a cows ass and see for myself, or I could just take the butcher's word."
people don’t remember what you say or do nearly as much as they remember the way that you make them feel.
thanks turd burglar
Here's a random weird one that stuck with me for some reason. I was a young child whining about getting ready, how I hated socks. And I grumbled, 'who even invented socks, and why??'
My dad responded "Mr. Socks, and his feet were cold." Which is 100% false, but I feel like that silly answer told me a lot on how to think about stuff.
If you wait till the last minute, it only takes a minute to do.
"I see now that the circumstances of one's birth is irrelevent, it is what you do with the gift of life that determines who you are."
- Mewtwo
If not me, then who? If not now, then when?
...as an adult, you realize that much of the time, no one is going to come save you.
The boy complained about his shoes till he met the boy with no feet.
I learned kinda early that we were not rich and I didn't really bug my mom for much.
That reminds me of "A man with no socks is like a man who has no socks."
A former boss would say, "Don't just do something. Sit there!"
It's a way to remember that very often it is more important to do the right thing than it is to just do something. Stop, think, then act.
My most favourite saying is:
Do the right thing, for the sake of it being the right thing.
It has got me far in life, even if there are occasional dips.
Another one that my father taught me: put a smile on your face and make the best of it. (sometimes you can't change the situation, but you can change how you view it.)
This one really struck a chord with me when I was young. There used to be an illustration on the wall of the hallway which led toward the cafeteria in elementary school. It read similar, "Do the right thing, even if everyone around you isnt."
It got me through a lot and saved my ass a few times.
I don't recall ever seeing one like that.. I like it, but you just reminded me of one I grew up seeing.. a bird eating a frog, but the frog is choking the bird, with a quote "never give up "
I recall the illustration: it was crayon or colored pencil faces of kids (like cartoon style or what your world find in a children's book) that outlined the quote. One face was happy while the other's looked.... Mad or sad maybe.
"Do not ask for a lighter load, but wider shoulders." -on trials and tribulations.
"Everyone is fighting a battle you know nothing about." -on compassion and perspective.
"It takes pressure to make diamonds." -on appreciating adversity.
"You can either laugh or cry. Take your pick." -on the absurdities of life.
"You can never go home again" -on impermanence. Not in the literal sense of never being able to physically go home, but rather that specific time and place in life that can't be returned to.
"You are the captain of your ship." -on taking command of your life.
The days are long but the years are short.
"Life happens where ever you are" "pide is not the opposite of shame, but it's source"
Oo I like that second one. It's a thinker.
You can never go home again.
The act of leaving means you and possibly your home and the people around it are now divergent. It loses the familiarity that made it comfortable.
Nobody gets out of life alive, life is a terminal condition.
Just setting expectations. Hopefully the realization that you only get one go at it, so try to live while you can.
Spare the rod, spoil the child.
I remember this because so many use it as a validation of punishment - the allusion to beating the child with a stick. What it means is to guide a child like a shepherd guides a flock using a crook or whatever. Teach and guide a child so they grow up well.
Everyone can be jealous of what you got, but nobody is jealous of how hou got it
Pretty self explanatory.
Youth is wasted on the young.
Just a tired old truism that young people just don’t appreciate what they have. Either health, time, looks, whatever. It’s true. They can’t. It’s like not appreciating breathing until you have a bad cold and realize the value of not having a plugged up nose.
Youth is wasted on the young. Wisdom is wasted on the old.
*If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging"
If you find yourself in a bad place, don't make it worse.
Civ 6 player?
I am fond of pigs
... maybe...
It doesn't TAKE all kinds, we just HAVE all kinds.
Nature bats last.
The earth isn't dying, it is being killed, and those killing it have names and addresses.
The earth isn't dying or being killed. That's human hubris to think like that, and equates our own survival to the survival of the planet. I promise you, long after humanity kills itself, there will still be trees, birds, fish, bugs, rivers, lakes, and streams. The earth will be fine. It's humanity that's fucked.
"How can there be world hunger if I have a sandwich?"
Just a reminder that your experience isn't necessarily the common one.
Never attribute to malice what may adequately be explained by incompetence.
“Valo lisää valoa”
Roughly translates to “light brings more light”.
Equally fundamental to my being as “hymy tarttuu”, which is the corny cousin with narrower scope. “Smile is contagious” translated roughly.
I prefer:
Niinkuin tikku paskassa
Or the equally sage:
Niinkuin pieru Saharassa
I've always liked the catch-all "Don't be shit. This means you!"
Also: "You can add salt, but never remove salt."
Also: "Before you speak, ask yourself what you want to achieve when you speak."
Also: "You can't control what happens to you, only how you react to it."
I can tell you one that is super applicable to the current era:
Garbage in, garbage out.
It's a 1980s programmer's adage in response to the belief by business owners that computers could solve their problems without data, or with limited data, or with inaccurate data.
Cut to the era of LLMs in which we're asking glorified autocomplete to answer deep, philosophical or religious questions, or complicated political questions or complex logical dilemmas, when they were trained on Reddit and 4Chan.
There's a 1970s corollary;
The computer is always right.
This is from the tendency of clerks and bureaucrats to, when confronted with conflicts between reality and the data fields in a computer database, favor what the magic box says.
Again, we're seeing magical box thinking in the present day.
bonus: sometimes you put non-garbage in and it's STILL garbage out! Because the thing you're putting it into is itself garbage. Exhibit A: trying to do good work for a company with bad procedures.
All true except GIGO originated in the '50s.
Got this one from a fortune cookie. What can I say, if it's good it's good.
"Friends are those who, when you've made a fool of yourself, don't think you've done a permanent job of it."
"Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind." - Sir Mark Young...or Bernard Baruch..or Dr. Seuss...no one knows
"you're in a marathon, not a sprint. Slow down or you'll burn yourself out."
Don’t feed animals that aren’t yours.
Reminds me of this one:
Edit: the reply before was:
Misunderstandings are the norm not the exception.
Meaning being misunderstood and thus ‘communication fails’ happens all the time. Give it your best to be clear and double check when in doubt. Don’t be pissed if someone didn’t understand you.
Don't let school get in the way of your education
"I've always enjoyed an advantage over people who don't read the instructions." -My Dad.
Folks, life doesn't always come with instructions, but when it does... read them.
We think we are approaching death gradually, and will die one day. That's not true. We are dying every single day, every single minute. The time in our life that has already passed, now belongs to death.... It's not that our life is short, it's just that we waste a lot of it.... We may leave this life this very moment, let that decide how we will go about with our stuff today.
"Happiness is a choice."
lmao
You may not be in a place to receive that now and that's cool, but maybe think about it when you're ready.
It's helped me not be so angry.
No I get it. It's just such a nice slap in the face for people suffering from depression :)
This is very true and ultimately one of the most difficult choices to ever make consistently.
You can't exclaim that everybody hates you. You haven't even met everyone yet.
Ooh! This reminds me of something similar: You can be the sweetest peach in a barrel full of peaches, but you'll never taste good to someone who doesn't like peaches.
Lol.
This.
Does the Bible actually say anything about the treatment of non-humans? I also seem to recall many instances in the Bible that sanction slavery, genocide, and war. This seems more like a summary of what people want the Bible to say, even though it doesn't.
In some sense the bible is a prolonged argument on the mechanics of butchering animals and how it relates to humans.
Burnt offerings, red heifers, hundreds of years of a lamb sacrifice tied to the temple, the Christos becoming the lamb of God, the Christos on the cross as the serpent on the staff, the binding of Issac and all that jazz.
In the book of Samuel wiping out the animals is a feature of genocide: "Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass."
Verses in Exodus 21, particularly verses 2-11, regulate slavery among Israelites, allowing Hebrew men to serve for six years, but also permitting permanent servitude for foreign slaves and stipulating rules for selling daughters. If an Israelite buys a Hebrew slave, the servant serves six years and goes free in the seventh. However, if the servant loves his master and chooses to stay, his ear is pierced, and he serves for life. A man could sell his daughter as a servant. She was not freed like male servants. If she did not, please her master, he had to let her be redeemed (bought back by family) and could not sell her to foreigners; if he took another wife, her basic needs (food, clothing, marital rights) could not be reduced. If a master beats a slave (male or female) and they die under their hand, the master is punished. But if the slave survives a day or two, the master is not punished, as the slave is considered their property.
I'm not an expert by any means but generally the Bible says that animals are on earth to serve man (or something similar like, there for man's use).
~ Frederick P. Brooks, Jr., The Mythical Man-Month
Everyone who does any kind of project management, especially involving other people, should read The Mythical Man-Month.
I also like this:
~ Paula Scher in the Netflix series Abstract: the Art of Design
My father always said ‘wherever you go, there you are’. Meaning don’t be afraid to explore and be comfortable wherever you find yourself.
Then again, when my stepmother hadn’t taken a turkey out to thaw in time for a family dinner such that it was still a bit frozen and she couldn’t get its legs apart to stuff it, he suggested she give it a margarita. So perhaps his advice wasn’t as sage as it sounded.
e: another gem from him, which should be on our family crest: ‘no project is too big to start’. Yeah, maybe don’t take that one to heart.
never carry what you can roll, never roll what you can leave.
back saving advice from an old stagehand.
All advice is autobiographical.
The graveyard is full of irreplaceable people.
No one is really irreplaceable
To a business, to the government, but in a human context of genuine togetherness, plenty of people are irreplaceable.
This quote reads like something I'd see on the owner-manager's wall.
Lol. You take it way to seriously. But for the discourse I will counter.
Ofc a parent or a child is irreplaceable for the family. A friend or a lived one, a pet is irreplaceable for those close to them.
And I interpret it that people over emphasise their own importance. No boss is irreplaceable, no CEO or politician is ultimately so important they can't be replaced with new people. There will come new experts, there will be new leaders, new visionaries, new scientists. When the current ones grow old and inevitably follow the path we all must go.
"This too shall pass"
For the people suffering in the world
And equally for the people not suffering.
Reminds me of a Chinese story about a horse
"Never let perfect get in the way of good enough."
If you wait on the "perfect" time to do something, or the "perfect" opportunity, you may find it never comes. Make the most of what's in front of you.
The best way to make money in Las Vegas is to sell light bulbs.
When in doubt, shut up.
A wise man* once said "If you do a shitty job rolling you'll end up with a shitty joint".
*His last name was literally "Wise".
Buy the tool you need, don’t wait for whatever is coming next.
Your second one. I'm fond of
That was a big one from my childhood.
This will be an odd one. I get a lot of anxiety. But as twisted as it is, one of my mentors said to me:
Relax, no one is shooting at you.
moment of bliss can ruin your life. it sounds much better in original language but idea translates well.
And
This last one I heard applied to backing up a trailer, but it works in many corners of life.
The one that stuck with me the most was one I heard a long time ago:
Unfortunately, I never became disciplined, but now that I'm old and full of regrets at least I know it was right.
Everything in life is temporary. Even life itself.
I think it's a good phrase? My mom said it a lot when I was young, but as I've grown it's started to sound like passive aggressive negging?
Which I always tried to do, but in practice I was seeking out to be tge dumbest person in any given room. Now as an adult I have severe anexity, I wonder if this was a factor.
Open to thoughts on this.
I think it is good advice too. All these smarter friends of yours are probably smarter about different things. And perhaps you have low self esteem tied to your anxiety? Which keeps you from seeing all the ways you are their smarter friend? 🤷♂️ I know I sure as heck do. Thanks for sharing your advice.
Yes, it's nice to learn from your friends but I think it's more important for them to just BE friends. The kind of people who defend you when attacked. The kind of people who think similarly to you. The kind of people that make you want to do the same. Respect!
There's a saying that applies to this thread, "Friends will help you move. Good friends will help you move bodies."
Get good friends. BE a good friend.
"Anything worth doing is worth doing badly"
When you have a task, no matter what it is, it doesn't actually matter too much if you do a good job or a bad job. What's important is that you do a job. Don't give up on something because it isn't perfect or because you don't have all the answers; just do it anyways. It doesn't matter if it's shitty or if it's incomplete, it's still infinitely better than doing nothing at all.
There are three lessons I learned early on in my career which, now that that I am the relatively old man, I try to impart them to the juniors.
"As the leader, when things go great, it's a TEAM effort. When things get fucked up, YOU take the blame."
"An okay plan applied immediately with vigour is far better than a perfect plan ten minutes too late."
"In the event that signals can neither be seen nor understood, no Captain can do very wrong if he puts his ship alongside that of an enemy."
Yes I know the last one is from Nelson, but it's still a good lesson.
There is a variation of that second quote from Warhammer somewhere I think
Never agree to do something next week you wouldn't do now
Yeah but also why do something now if it can wait until next week.
And why not delay indefinitely that which can be put off until next week?
Want to come help me move next week?
Want to go to suchband such party next week?
I feel if I'm not excited or interested now i certainly won't be then.
All I end up with is a whole week of dread etc waiting for it
Of course you should. This allows you to say in a text or on the phone that you're not doing it, instead of to that person's face.
"It's easy to be the band of misfits who plays by their own rules and gets things done. It's much more difficult to do exceptional work and do it the right way the whole time."
Sort of a long form "Any job worth doing is with doing right" but focuses more on the team doing the work.
And, yes, at the time the workplace culture was firmly in the "Play hard, work to standard, cut the corners just enough that we don't get in trouble" realm. Lots of hangovers during that job...
Unless they paying your bills, pay them bitches no mind. Rupaul Charles
Never run when you can walk, never walk when you can stand, never stand when you can sit, never sit when you can lie down. If you lie down, sleep.
Fight back.
You aren't always thinking what you think you're thinking.
Better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it
Better safe than sorry
Waste not, want not
Don't put it down, put it away
Your brain is only as long as your pencil
A shorter version I've always said for the first one is "I'd rather be looking at it than looking for it"
I often think about that quote whenever I miss the past. Nostalgia is inevitable, but regret over missed opportunities is never guaranteed :,)
I cannot for the life of me remember where/who I heard it from, but I do remember hearing soemone say "Respect is earned, not given" and I agree so much with it.
I'm the type of person who will give you a baseline amount of respect, but it's very much so on a slippery scale. One wrong or right move can change completely how I view you and evaluate our relationship.
Quando omni flunks, moritati.
Or a real piece of advice from my grandpa when I got my first "real" job.
"Everyone wants to feel important."
If you are working with 20 different clients on a product today, each one of them should feel like they matter more to you than the one before, or the one after. Make time to talk with them. Ask questions to know more about them or their business. Do a little research beforehand if you can. Make sure that you know their name, and that they know yours.
Wish in one hand, shit in the other, and see which one fills up first.
Happiness is an inside joke. Not everyone is going to get it.
There are more casualties in this world from indecision than bad decisions.
Don't envy old age. The newspaper will still come out long after you are no longer mentioned. Invest your youth.
The ignorant search for something. The discover demands all he sees makes sense.
We come into this world full of love and fear of losing love. All other emotion is a distraction. This is the base emotion. If you can die without fear and still full of love, you've won the game of life.
"Nothing good lasts, nothing bad lasts. The only constant is change."
"So do not worry or be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will have worries and anxieties of its own. Sufficient for each day is its own trouble." - great reminder for anxious people but also for everyone in general, over worrying is not only a bad time but also wasteful and unproductive
"No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money" - anti-capitalist/greediness statement that is the basis for any actual prosocial society
"You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect." - a reminder to approach everyone with love and patience, and not just because it's the right thing to do but because, if you want to change their mind, you're gonna have to go softly and wisely (this includes MAGA!)
All from the big J of Nazareth, of course.
If someone is unfairly criticizing someone or a group of people it is only because they feel inadequate in some way.
From my ex-father-in-law
This comes to mind while driving
Finally, my daily motivator (on my lock screen)
Never push a glacier
Some people only speak one language.
Ubi dubium ibi libertas – Where there is doubt there is freedom!
To be cringe is to be free: don't let other people tell you how to live your life.
"Life is what happens to you while you are making other plans".
As taught by my dad:
A thing of beauty is a joy forever
Wherever you go, there you are.
Be the change you want to see in the world.
Niether a borrower nor a lender be.
The twig you underestimated is going to be the one to take your eye out.
Both from the webnovel "Reverend Insanity." Protagonist was kind of an edgy murder-hobo at times, but I really needed to hear both these quotes from a random fantasy book in highschool.
Most people will talk about doing something rather than doing it.
I'll share (a crude translation of) a piece of song lyrics. It has two great nuggets of wisdom right next to each other!
"There are no meaningless days Or if there are the whole life is So useless that it's better not To think about it today
And I suppose it won't be a punishment If we go together for a while When we turn out to be monsters Will the good days be a lie even then?"
The first part, for me, is about the meaning of life. How it must come from within and how it is in every moment. The second part is good relationship advice, in my opinion. Duration does not equal quality or significance. (The monsters part I don't consider that important, but for some it may be.) And these points work well together. The meaning is in the moments.
The song is Sielunvihollinen by CMX.
You're cuttin' a little close to the bone there pal. :'(
Oof, I see how that can hit a sensitive spot. I mostly meant it in a positive sense, that even a short thing can be important. But of course it also has the other side, sadly. However, here comes the importance about the monsters part: the good days are still not a lie.
Don't name your gods.
Nothing ventured, nothing gained
Keep moving forward.
It's from the movies Meet the Robinsons and Rocky Balboa (2006)
"Know your audience"
FAFO
“We cross our bridges when we come to them and burn them behind us, with nothing to show for our progress except a memory of the smell of smoke, and a presumption that once our eyes watered.”
BLOCKED.
So everyone knows, this account is following me around.
Please report it to the admins.
The hell even is it? A phishing scam? Isn't Lemmy mostly somewhat tech savvy for that type of attack?
It leads to a credit card input to “clear your account status” type of thing.
Don't let someone else be the protagonist of your story
Learned that the hard way when I was best friends with someone who literally obsessed over their life being like a real-life K-drama
The thing about people who thrive on being the center of drama is that eventually you will be a part of it even if you try your damnedest not to
Terry Goidkind. The wizards rules. Sure he was terrified about communism, whatever. But separate art from artist.
Read the wizards rules and tell me it's bot truth.
EDIT because someone rudely asked:
Wizards Rules
People are stupid.
The greatest harm can result from the best intentions.
Passion rules reason, for better or for worse.
There is magic in sincere forgiveness; in the forgiveness you give, but more so in the forgiveness you receive.
Mind what people do, not only what they say, for deeds will betray a lie.
The only sovereign you can allow to rule you is reason.
Life is the future, not the past.
Talga Vassternich Deserve victory.
Contradictions cannot exist. Not in part nor in whole.
Willfully turning aside from the truth is treason to one's self.
Embrace life, seek strength without hate.
https://sot.fandom.com/wiki/Wizard%27s_Rules
Is it that hard to just link to the thing you want other people to see
Here's a non fandom link: https://terrygoodkindlegacy.com/rules
Looks pretty sloppy, but maybe that's modern bootstrapped web design, idk.
That first one is hard to argue with.
edited just for you
Ass, cash or grass, no one rides for free.
Even a blind elephant can remember to nut twice a day