Quietist Proverbs, Part 5

It's funny how uplift never mentions political realities.
Even more problematic is the hectoring way mindfulness is being propagated. To learn how to live in the moment as an individual can be liberating, but when your employer encourages you to do it, it gets creepy — the sinister implication being that they don’t want you to think about past problems or future challenges, and just want you to accept things as they are. (Sathnam Sanghera, Times Aug 2014)

You can get anything you want as long as you want what you can get.

You can’t always get what you want, but if you try some time, you may get what you need. (Rolling Stones)

For everything you have missed, you have gained something else, and for everything you gain, you lose something else. (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

You can have anything you want as long as you want it enough. (And this magic carpet will take you anywhere as long as you don’t think of a purple cow.)



Happiness doesn’t result from what we get, but from what we give.

The key to happiness is letting each situation be what it is instead of what you want it to be. (Might work for a romantic relationship, but not for being bullied.)

Don’t compare yourself to other people, it’ll only make you unhappy. Forget it and move on.

A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving. (Lao Tzu)

Happiness is a direction not a destination.

Happiness is not a state to arrive at but a manner of travelling.

We enjoy the process far more than the proceeds. (Warren Buffett)

To be without some of the things you want is an indispensible part of happiness. (Bertrand Russell)

You can’t change other people, but you can change the way you react to them.


Valerie, dear, it’s more dignified to keep silent. (Valerie Trierweiler, ousted first lady of France, has written a kiss and tell memoir. She wasn’t married to the President, so can’t claim half the Elysée Palace, or any alimony. I hope she makes lots of money.)

It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.


One of the lessons of history is that nothing is often a good thing to do and always a clever thing to say. (Will Durant)

When someone hurts you, cry a river, build a bridge, and get over it! (That's not what it says in the song.)

Funny how violence is never the answer when used by oppressed people, and always the answer when used by the state. (Week of Ferguson events, August 2014, BGD ‏@BlackGirlDanger)

There was a really meaningful question asked. "Why is this all about controlling the anger instead of fixing the issues?" (In the week of the Ferguson protests, Kate von Roeder ‏@ItsDamiya)


Success is not just the accumulation of things. It is being able to spend our life in our own way. (Oh, so success is measured by the accumulation of things?)

Success is going from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm. (Abraham Lincoln - or Winston Churchill? And if "success" now means "failure" what are you going to call "achieving what you set out to do"?)

I’ve failed over and over in my life – this is why I succeed. (Mark Twain - or was it the Dalai Lama? Or Groucho Marx?)

More here, and links to the rest.