Blaise Pascal on Distraction and Misery
“Distraction is the only thing that consoles us for our miseries, and yet it is itself the greatest of our miseries.”
Blaise Pascal
Maya Angelou on Writing
“What I try to do is write. I may write for two weeks ‘the cat sat on the mat, that is that, not a rat.’ And it might be just the most boring and awful stuff. But I try. When I’m writing, I write. And then it’s as if the muse is convinced that I’m serious and says, ‘Okay. Okay. I’ll come.'”
Maya Angelou
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe on Focus
“Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Paul Graham on Procrastination
“Errands are so effective at killing great projects that a lot of people use them for that purpose. Someone who has decided to write a novel, for example, will suddenly find that the house needs cleaning. People who fail to write novels don’t do it by sitting in front of a blank page for days without writing anything. They do it by feeding the cat, going out to buy something they need for their apartment, meeting a friend for coffee, checking email. ‘I don’t have time to work,’ they say. And they don’t; they’ve made sure of that.”
Paul Graham, Good and Bad Procrastination
Og Mandino on Habits
“In truth, the only difference between those who have failed and those who have succeeded lies in the difference of their habits. Good habits are the key to all success. Bad habits are the unlocked door to failure.”
Og Mandino
E.E. Cummings on Courage To Be Yourself
“To be nobody but yourself – in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you like everybody else – means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight – and never stop fighting.”
E.E. Cummings