We live in a society that encourages us to think about how to have a great career but leaves many of us inarticulate about how to cultivate the inner life. The competition to succeed and win admiration is so fierce that it becomes all-consuming… The noise of fast and shallow communications makes it harder to hear the quieter sounds that emanate from the depths. We live in a culture that teaches us to promote and advertise ourselves and to master the skills required for success, but that gives little encouragement to humility, sympathy, and honest self-confrontation, which are necessary for building character.

Recommended reading: The Road to Character.

If you really learn how to pay attention… it will actually be within your power to experience a crowded, hot, slow, consumer-hell type situation as not only meaningful, but sacred, on fire with the same force that made the stars: love, fellowship, the mystical oneness of all things deep down.

Recommend reading: This Is Water: Some Thoughts, Delivered on a Significant Occasion, about Living a Compassionate Life.

Start by doing what is necessary; then do what is possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible.

Recommended reading: Francis of Assisi in His Own Words: The Essential Writings.

He who says “Better to go without belief forever than believe in a lie!” merely shows his own preponderant private horror of becoming a dupe… It is like a general informing his soldiers that it is better to keep out of battle forever than to risk a single wound. Not so are victories either over enemies or over nature gained. Our errors are surely not such awfully solemn things. In a world where we are so certain to incur them in spite of all our caution, a certain lightness of heart seems healthier than this excessive nervousness on their behalf.

Recommended reading: The Will to Believe.

Try to acquire the weird practice of savoring your mistakes, delighting in uncovering the strange quirks that led you astray. Then, once you have sucked out all the goodness to be gained from having made them, you can cheerfully set them behind you, and go on to the next big opportunity. But that is not enough: you should actively seek out opportunities to make grand mistakes. just so you can then recover from them.

Recommended reading: Intuition Pumps And Other Tools for Thinking.

I would define intellectual elegance as a mind that is continually refining itself with education and knowledge. Intellectual elegance is the opposite of intellectual vulgarity. We all know vulgarity very well… it is easier to absorb. Elegance is about education and refinement, and it is a by-product of a continual search for the best and for the sublime.

Recommended reading: The Vignelli Canon.

We don’t seek the painful experiences that hue our identities; but we seek our identities in the wake of painful experiences. We cannot bear a pointless torment; but we can endure great pain if we believe that it’s purposeful.

Recommended reading: Far From the Tree: Parents, Children and the Search for Identity.

Most people tend to delude themselves into thinking that freedom comes from doing what feels good or what fosters comfort and ease. The truth is that people who subordinate reason to their feelings of the moment are actually slaves of their desires and aversions. They are ill-prepared to act effectively and nobly when unexpected challenges occur, as they inevitable will. Authentic freedom places demands on us. In discovering and comprehending our fundamental relations to one another and zestfully performing our duties, true freedom, which all people long for, is indeed possible.

Recommended reading: Art of Living: The Classical Manual on Virtue, Happiness, and Effectiveness.

Things themselves don’t hurt or hinder us. Nor do other people. How we view these things is another matter. It is our attitudes and reactions that give us trouble. Therefore even death is no big deal in and out of itself. It is our notion of death, our idea that it is terrible, that terrifies us. There are so many different ways to think about death – and everything else. Are they really true? Are they doing you any good? Don’t dread death or pain: dread the fear of death or pain. We cannot choose our external circumstances, but we can always choose how we respond to them.

Recommended reading: Art of Living: The Classical Manual on Virtue, Happiness, and Effectiveness.

Real solitude comes from a stable heard that does not get carried away by the pull of the crowd, nor by the sorrows about the past, worries about the future, or excitement or stress about the present.

Recommended reading: Silence: The Power of Quiet in a World Full of Noise.