Echoes

He who lets the world, or his own portion of it, choose his plan of life for him, has no need of any other faculty than the ape-like one of imitation. He who chooses his plan for himself, employs all his faculties. He must use observation to see, reasoning and judgment to foresee, activity to gather materials for decision, discrimination to decide, and when he has decided, firmness and self-control to hold to his deliberate decision.

The great thing, then, in all education, is to make our nervous system our ally instead of our enemy. It is to fund and capitalize our acquisitions, and live at ease upon the interest of the fund. For this we must make automatic and habitual, as early as possible, as many useful actions as we can, and guard against the growing into ways that are likely to be disadvantageous to us, as we should guard against the plague.

A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the lustre of the firmament of bards and sages. Yet he dismisses without notice his thought, because it is his. In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts: they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty.

I do not think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday.

The wise man should restrain his senses like the crane and accomplish his purpose with due knowledge of his place, time and ability.

Learning never exhausts the mind.

The mind must be given relaxation — it will rise improved and sharper after a good rest. Just as we must not force fertile farmland, for uninterrupted productivity will soon exhaust it, so constant effort will sap our mental vigor.

Those who are slaves to their appetites cannot preserve their reason, their memory, or their senses in their full vigour; for a full belly does not produce a fine mind.

He whose intellect overcomes his desire is higher than the angels; he whose desire overcomes his intellect is less than an animal.

One can have no smaller or greater mastery than mastery of oneself.

Nor less I deem that there are Powers / Which of themselves our minds impress; / That we can feed this mind of ours / In a wise passiveness.

Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.

The five colors blind the eye. The five tones deafen the ear. The five flavors dull the taste. Racing and hunting madden the mind. Precious things lead one astray. Therefore the sage is guided by what he feels and not by what he sees. He lets go of that and chooses this.

With your spirit settled, accumulate practice day by day, and hour by hour. Polish the twofold spirit heart and mind, and sharpen the twofold gaze perception and sight. When your spirit is not in the least clouded, when the clouds of bewilderment clear away, there is the true void.

It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience.

Wonder is the beginning of wisdom.

Every Israelite has a duty to study whether he is poor or rich, whether healthy or suffering, whether young or very old and in failing strength, even if he is poor and supported by charity or begs from door to door.

Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom. Mastering others is strength; mastering yourself is true power.

Blessedness is not the reward of virtue, but virtue itself; neither do we rejoice therein, because we control our lusts, but, contrariwise, because we rejoice therein, we are able to control our lusts.

Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel.

Curiosity is one of the permanent and certain characteristicks of a vigorous intellect. Every advance into knowledge opens new prospects, and produces new incitements to farther progress.

I constantly see people rise in life who are not the smartest, sometimes not even the most diligent, but they are learning machines. They go to bed every night a little wiser than they were when they got up and boy does that help, particularly when you have a long run ahead of you.

The primary indication, to my thinking, of a well-ordered mind is a man's ability to remain in one place and linger in his own company.

To know thyself is the beginning of wisdom.

It is well said, then, that it is by doing just acts that the just man is produced, and by doing temperate acts the temperate man; without doing these no one would have even a prospect of becoming good. But most people do not do these, but take refuge in theory and think they are being philosophers and will become good in this way, behaving somewhat like patients who listen attentively to their doctors, but do none of the things they are ordered to do.