The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one’s real and one’s declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink.
George Orwell in
Politics and the English Language, 1946
It’s not what you say that makes the sale,
it’s what you hear.
See also: One More Question on this blog.
In any case, even the truth, when believed, is a lie.
You must experience the truth, not believe it.
Werner Erhard
Quoted in
Werner Erhard
The Transformation of a Man:
The Founding of EST
Click for more Dogma Danger.
…and the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.
Leadership is getting someone to do what they don’t want to do, to achieve what they want to achieve.
Tom Landry
Dallas Cowboys
When a thing is new, people say, It is not true. Later, when its truth becomes obvious, they say, It’s not important. Finally, when its importance cannot be denied, they say, Anyway, it’s not new.
This is widely attributed to William James, but I can not find it. If you have a specific citation, please, put it in the comments.
Scientists argue that the brain has evolved to see a split second into the future when it perceives motion. Because it takes the brain at least a tenth of a second to model visual information, it is working with old information. By modeling the future during movement, it is “seeing” the present.
Because I know that time is always time
And place is always and only place
And what is actual is actual only for one time
And only for one place
I rejoice that things are as they are and
I renounce the blessèd face
And renounce the voice
Because I cannot hope to turn again
Consequently I rejoice, having to construct something
Upon which to rejoice
Hear this poem read by T. S. Eliot at: http://speakingoffaith.publicradio.org/programs/armstrong/ashwednesday.shtml
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous,
Actually, who are you not to be?You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn’t serve the world.
There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you.
We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us — it’s in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.
–Marianne Williamson
Widely mis-attributed to Nelson Mandela
“Artistic growth is, more than anything else a refining of the sense of truthfulness. The stupid believe that to be truthful is easy; only the artist, the great artist, knows how difficult that really is.”
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