Echoes
Aesop
“Beware lest you lose the substance by grasping at the shadow.”
❧
Read the best books first, or you may not have a chance to read them at all.
You will hear every day the maxims of a low prudence. You will hear, that the first duty is to get land and money, place and name. "What is this Truth you seek? What is this Beauty?" men will ask, with derision. If, nevertheless, God have called any of you to explore truth and beauty, be bold, be firm, be true. When you shall say, "As others do, so will I. I renounce, I am sorry for it, my early visions; I must eat the good of the land, and let learning and romantic expectations go, until a more convenient season." — then dies the man in you; then once more perish the buds of art, and poetry, and science, as they have died already in a thousand thousand men. The hour of that choice is the crisis of your history; and see that you hold yourself fast by the intellect. ... Bend to the persuasion which is flowing to you from every object in Nature, to be its tongue to the heart of man, and to show the besotted world how passing fair is wisdom.
Never esteem anything as of advantage to you that will make you break your word or lose your self-respect.
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.
The wealth required by nature is limited and is easy to procure; but the wealth required by vain ideals extends to infinity. (15)
If you live according to nature, you will never be poor; if you live according to opinion, you will never be rich.
It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a great deal of it.
Our bodies are perishable, wealth is not at all permanent and death is always nearby. Therefore we must immediately engage in acts of merit.
Do not seek pleasure for its own sake.
That is not riches, which may be lost; virtue is our true good and the true reward of its possessor. That cannot be lost; that never deserts us, but when life leaves us. As to property and external riches, hold them with trembling; they often leave their possessor in contempt, and mocked at for having lost them.
The hidden harmony is better than the obvious.
Virtue is serious business; everything else is farce.
Faith is the best wealth for a man in this world. Righteousness when well practised brings happiness. Truth is the sweetest of flavours. They say the life of one living by wisdom is the best.
Thou oughtest in every deed and thought so to order thyself, as if thou wert to die this day.
True glory takes root and spreads; all pretenses quickly fall like flowers, and nothing feigned can last.
Life is too short to waste The critic bite or cynic bark, Quarrel, or reprimand; ’Twill soon be dark; Up! mind thine own aim, and God speed the mark!
It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.
Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure — these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.
I have learned that to be with those I like is enough.
In the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years.
The point is, not how long you live, but how nobly you live. And often this living nobly means that you cannot live long.
Our sadness is not sad, but our cheap joys.
He is richest who is content with the least, for contentment is the wealth of nature.
Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.