Quotes About Circumstances

Life starts out as partly destiny and partly free will, but then you have kids, and it's all destiny.

El poder es, en esencia, amoral. Una de las habilidades más importantes que deberá adquirir es la capacidad de aprender a ver circunstancias, en lugar de, simplemente, el bien o el mal.

Those misfortunates among us who have been brought down by circumstances beyond their control deserve all the help and sympathy we can give them. But there are others who are not born to misfortune or unhappiness, but who draw it upon themselves by their destructive actions and unsettling effect on others. It would be a great thing if we could raise them up, change their patterns, but more often than not it is their patterns that end up getting inside and changing us.

The essence of strategy is not to carry out a brilliant plan that proceeds in steps. It is to put yourself in situations where you have more options than your enemy does...True strategy is being able to do strategy A, B, or C, depending on the circumstances.

Not only because of the fact that . . . oppression usually increases if it is suffered calmly and without protest, but also because opposition gives us inner satisfaction, distraction, relief . . . Our opposition makes us feel that we are not completely victims of the circumstances. GEORG SIMMEL, 1858–1918

People do not want truth and honesty, no matter how much we hear such nonsense endlessly repeated. They want their imaginations to be stimulated and to be taken beyond their banal circumstances. They want fantasy and objects of desire to covet and grope after.

What makes us go astray in the first place is that we are unattuned to the present moment, insensitive to the circumstances. We are listening to our own thoughts, reacting to things that happened in the past, applying theories and ideas that we digested long ago but that have nothing to do with our predicament in the present. More books, theories, and thinking only make the problem worse.

The model goes like this: You want to learn as many skills as possible, following the direction that circumstances lead you to, but only if they are related to your deepest interests. Like a hacker, you value the process of self-discovery and making things that are of the highest quality.

Las personas irracionales revelan en su vida patrones negativos: errores que no cesan de repetir, conflictos innecesarios que las siguen por doquier, sueños y proyectos que jamás se hacen realidad, enojo y deseos de cambio que nunca se traducen en acciones concretas. Son impulsivas y reactivas y no están conscientes de ello. Todos podemos tomar decisiones irracionales, algunas de ellas debido a circunstancias que escapan a nuestro control.

There is no good and bad, there are only circumstances.

Only some inner drive—pleasure, love—can help us overcome obstacles, prepare a path, and lift us out of the narrow circle in which others tread out their anguished, miserable existences!

Por esto, cuando he conseguido una victoria, no vuelvo a emplear la misma táctica otra vez, sino que, respondiendo a las circunstancias, varío mis métodos hasta el infinito. —Sun-tzu (siglo IV a.C.).

But sometimes the change chooses you, or the Wheel chooses it for you. And sometimes the Wheel bends a life-thread, or several threads, in such a way that all the surrounding threads are forced to swirl around it, and those force other threads, and those still others, and on and on.

Choice, not circumstances, determines your success.

Events shaped men, perhaps, but they did not remove alternatives of choice.

Impatience is best handled by allowing an indefinite time for the job, particularly new jobs that require unfamiliar techniques; by doubling the allotted time when circumstances force time planning;

Testosterone makes us more willing to do what it takes to attain and maintain status. And the key point is what it takes. Engineer social circumstances right, and boosting testosterone levels during a challenge would make people compete like crazy to do the most acts of random kindness. In our world riddled with male violence, the problem isn't that testosterone can increase levels of aggression. The problem is the frequency with which we reward aggression.

Utopiile se aseam?n? cu posibilit??ile; din faptul c? o posibilitate nu este o realitate nu se deduce nimic altceva decât c? circumstanÈ›ele în care se afl? împiedic? punerea ei în aplicare, c?ci altminteri ea ar fi doar o imposibilitate; îns? dac? este eliberat? de constrângeri È™i i se permite s? se dezvolte, se creeaz? utopia.

Why did I become a professional pornographer? What can I say? I needed a job, a job was offered to me, and I took it.

There is a difference between being poor and being broke. Broke is temporary. Poor is eternal." My

The problem was that the rich man was not rich yet, and the poor man was not yet poor.

Leslie, after her first anguish was over, found it possible to go on with life after all, as most of us do, no matter what our particular form of torment has been. It is even possible that she enjoyed moments of it, when she was one of the gay circle in the little house of dreams.

Are we going to design and build circumstances that enlarge possibilities for growth in human freedom, sociability, intelligence, creativity, and self-government? Or are we headed in an altogether different direction?

What would you know about anything, Jasper?" Augustus asked. "Age don't slow a man's whoring. It's lack of income that does that. No more prosperous than you look, I wouldn't think you'd know much about it.