Asklemmy

Something my grandpa said, sometime around 2006-2007 I think.

"The next world war, will be between the rich and and the poor, and the rich will win before the poor knows there's a war."

"Hurt people hurt people"

Ever since I heard this, I became relatively more compassionate towards people, even if they piss me off.

The opposite of love is not hate, but apathy.

Truly hating something takes passion, energy and time out of your day. It also taught me that for masters of personal interest, if you truly need to end a relationship with someone, you simply stop responding. It’s far more effective than loudly proclaiming what you feel they do wrong. That will take far more away from you than if you cut ties.

"True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country." ~ Kurt Vonnegut

"Feelings are like children, you can't let them drive, but you can't put them in the trunk."

But I feel that one has a ¨spiritual parent¨:

"Educate a child so you don't have to reprimand an adult."

and a ¨spiritual sibling¨:

"If your only tool is a Hammer then every problem looks like a Nail."

"When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all." -A clump of talking stars in Futurama I look at it like being a good custodian or someone who takes pride in the smallest details of their work, regardless of whether or not you receive recognition for them. Most people don't notice the effort being put in when things are running smoothly. The work of the people behind the scenes is directly responsible for successes in the spotlight.

"Sometimes the smallest things take up the most room in your heart." - Winnie-the-Pooh

I didn't read Winnie-the-Pooh till I was an adult and when I read this it felt like reading a universal truth everyone should know. It nearly brought me to tears.

"It'll never be the same"
In context, meaning that things can never go back to the way they were... Ever.

For me it's like a grounding statement. Whenever I start thinking about some past time and just want things to go back to how they were, I remember this. My mind shifts to the future and I forget that nostalgic feeling because I remember that it can never be.

The less you know about your history, the easier it is to imagine you'd always be on the right side of it.

That'll do Donkey.. That'll do.

Edit. I mean it. That calming way shrek says it. The idea that enough has been done, and that everything is OK. That I'm ok. It's a lovely, and powerful moment in the film that translates to so many day to day situations.

The woods would be very silent if no birds sang except those who sang best

"They say, 'Evil prevails when good men fail to act.' What they ought to say is, 'Evil prevails.'

Bleak quote from Lord of War that has stuck with me. Reminds me of Sophie Scholl.

Comparison is the thief of joy. I think a lot of people could do with that one.

"It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt" - Often wrongly attributed to Mark Twain or Abraham Lincoln but the earliest record is Maurice Switzer

Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.

George Orwell, 1984

"(S)cience tends to progress through younger people, and old ideas tend to die with the originators of those ideas. through this cynical view, science progresses one coffin at a time."

the Sting of the wild p142, J.O. Schmidt

You are under no obligation to be the same person you were five minutes ago. - Alan Watts

Be excellent to each other and party on dudes.

Genuinely how I try to live my life, be kind and helpful to others and enjoy myself doing it.

Mine is not as deep as yours and kind of cheesy since you see them in posters, Tshirts and stickers etc. it’s “pain is temporary, glory is forever.” This sentence helped me get through college while working mad hours just to pay for my tuition while writing essays and studying for exams. I would repeat this over and over to myself just to get through that day or moment hoping things would be better.

Don't let the fear of the time it will take to accomplish something stand in the way of your doing it. The time will pass anyway; we might just as well put that passing time to the best possible use.

Earl Nightingale

Someone shared the phrase "The time will pass anyway" with me back when I was working on getting healthier. It was a constant reminder that there was no "best" day to start my journey and that anytime I was set back, I could pick things back up right away.

“No matter where you go, there you are.”

Made absolutely no sense to me when I was younger. Now, I get that it means changing one’s location or situation in an effort to avoid something doesn’t work. You’re still you, you’re there, and the problem still exists. Obviously some situations can be improved by leaving them, so the statement isn’t completely correct, but there’s plenty of truth to it.

“You can never go home again” also used to bug me, because of course you can physically return to the places you grew up. But if you’ve been away a good while the place you grew up in might have changed, the people will have changed, and you will also have changed. Home will be where you have made a new life. Your old home will be like trying to put on a shoe you haven’t worn in a few years. Yeah, it fits, but it doesn’t feel right. It’s not comfortable like it used to feel. Home isn’t there anymore. I kinda envy some people that I know who never left my hometown. They have the same friends, been hanging out for years, still get together for family stuff…but at the same time I’ve experienced a shitload more than they have. My original home doesn’t exist for me anymore.

I would rather have questions that cannot be answered than answers that cannot be questioned.

Richard Feynman

"Who's 'we', paleface?"

It's from a silly joke, so it's not meant to be taken seriously. But I remember it every time some politician or Internet dweller or anything in between uses "we" to describe a position, an opinion, etc. Who's 'we'? Do you dream to speak for others, for me? In my stead?

Not so much a quote as a poem, but it's brief so here's the whole thing:

They fuck you up, your mum and dad. They may not mean to, but they do. They fill you with the faults they had And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn By fools in old-style hats and coats, Who half the time were soppy-stern And half at one another's throats.

Man hands on misery to man, It deepens like a coastal shelf. Get out as early as you can, And don't have any kids yourself.

• "This Be the Verse" by Philip Larkin

As for what it means to me, I think it speaks for itself. It's bleak and devastating, yet beautiful. I love the elegance and simplicity of the writing. It's the only poem I have memorized because it's so aesthetically pleasing and emotionally resonant. It has stuck with me since I first heard it over 10 years ago.

You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait. Do not even wait, be quiet still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet. -- Franz Kafka

It's not a party if it happens every night

Just keep swimming, just keep swimming, just keep swimming, swimming, swimming. What do we do? We swim, swim, swim

Underrated Dory wisdom

You don't need to do everything every day. Some days, surviving is enough.

"History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake" - Stephen Daedalus in Ulysses by James Joyce.

Should I kill myself, or have a cup of coffee? But in the end one needs more courage to live than to kill himself.

~ Camus

Never tie your identity to something that can be taken away. Re: job title, salary, perceived status. Your self perceived identity should have a much more stable foundation.

"Who I am is where I stand.

Where I stand is where I fall."

-Steven Moffat, Doctor Who

I have a lot of darkness in my head due to my upbringing. I'll never get it out. That doesn't stop me from being a good man, because who you are and what you'll be remembered as isn't your internal struggle, its what you chose to stand for in practice.

Oh and there's also this one ftom H2G2 :

Slartibartfast: Perhaps I'm old and tired, but I think that the chances of finding out what's actually going on are so absurdly remote that the only thing to do is to say, "Hang the sense of it," and keep yourself busy. I'd much rather be happy than right any day. Arthur Dent: And are you? Slartibartfast: Ah, no. [laughs, snorts] Slartibartfast: Well, that's where it all falls down, of course

Don't be upsetti, eat some spaghetti.

Sounds silly but genuinely helps me not get too upset about things I don't hold much power over. At the end of the day I can still make a pot of spaghetti and enjoy it. I like spaghetti.

"Time flies, time crawls You're a prisoner trapped between its claws Life sucks, sometimes You gotta learn to live between the lines"

Pretty much as written. Time marches forward no matter how I feel about it. My best friend died, people still sat in traffic on the way to work. My wife said she wanted a divorce, the mailman still brought me bills. I made the best chilli I've ever tasted and my neighbors cat disappeared. You gotta learn to just accept that life is fleeting and carve out your own space. Find your own joy. Bring your own good time. Because life doesn't owe you anything and moaning about it won't make things better.

"we are born alone, we live alone, and we die alone. it is only through love and relationships that we create the illusion that we are not alone"

“The magic you are looking for is in the work you are avoiding” Dipen Parmar

The pleasure of being understood is underrated

• Simon Baker portraying Patrick Jane in The Mentalist

"Don't let perfect be the enemy of good."

I would be so far ahead of where I am right now if I had just decided on a course and committed instead of analyzing all the choices to death.

I don't necessarily think it's underrated because it's the underpinning of a major religion, but;

Existence is suffering.

The first noble truth of Buddhism that I don't think enough people really grasp.

On first read, those three words sound like an angsty teen being all sad, but a deeper exploration tells us that to expect a life of ease and unending contentment is to set ourselves up for continued disappointment and anguish.

When I first really absorbed the meaning of this it actually made me feel incredible. I am alive, therefore my knee hurts. I am alive, so I'm worried for the welfare of those I love. And when I considered it even further I began to understand that this is something that connects us all, regardless of our status in the world. From the most powerful kings and presidents to those sleeping rough begging for change; we are all fundamentally the same.

For me, it's really helped me to push through boundaries that have stopped me being more assertive with those who are more powerful than I am; managers, bosses and such. My boss worries about stuff the same way I do. It's probably different stuff, sure, but he's still experiencing existential pain.

I am not a Buddhist, nor am I particularly spiritual. But I take a lot of inspiration from that phrase.

Creative minds are uneven, and the best of fabrics have their dull spots.

H.P. Lovecraft

Never half-ass two things. Whole-ass one thing.

"You know, sweetheart, if there's one thing I've learned, it's this: nobody knows what's gonna happen at the end of the line, so you might as well enjoy the trip." Manny Calavera