"Whenever you are faced with a choice, be attentive: do not choose what is convenient, comfortable, respectable, socially accepted, or honorable. Choose what resonates in your heart. Choose what you would like to do, regardless of any consequences."
"It is all very simple: the same leaf falls again and again. But that is not enough for you; you also need to understand how, why, and what for. Yet there is nothing to understand here, and in any case, it cannot be understood."
"A person's life is like a spiral that widens upward. Each turn repeats the trajectory of the previous one, but unfolds on a new, higher level or stage of life's journey and development, where experience, knowledge, abilities, and responsibility increase. A wrong decision closes the turn, forcing a person to go around in circles and repeat the same experience until they become aware of and correct their own mistakes. It is like a game in which you cannot move on to the next level without completing the goals and tasks of the previous one. Thus, 'running in circles' is life's penalty for making the wrong decision."
A. Khristinin
❝ Thus, morality is based on dignity, and dignity on morality. But apart from this, it seems to me that speaking of the dignity of such a being as a human being—a being with such a sinful will, such a limited spirit, and such a fragile and easily injured body—is possible only in an ironic sense. ❞
"Govern the people with dignity, and they will be respectful. Treat the people kindly, and they will work diligently. Elevate the virtuous and instruct the ignorant. And the people will trust you." Confucius
"Justice is when everyone attends to their own affairs, and governance should be rational and directed toward the good of those governed, not the rulers."
Plato, "The Republic"
"Knowledge is the only wealth that increases when it is shared."
Socrates
"Knowledge always seeks to multiply; it is like a fire that must first be kindled from some external source, after which it will spread by itself."
Samuel Johnson
"The best part of our knowledge is that which teaches us that where knowledge ceases to accumulate, ignorance is born."
O. W. Holmes
"Why is fire filled with such inexplicable charm for us? What draws both old and young to it? Fire is eternal movement. It is what people have always sought to find, but never did. Or almost eternal. If it were not hindered, it would burn without going out throughout our entire lives. And yet, what is fire? A mystery? A riddle? Scientists mutter something about friction and molecules, but in essence, they know nothing. The main charm of fire is that it destroys responsibility and consequences. If a problem has become too burdensome—throw it into the stove."
"Divine love and the Divine truth proceeding from it may be likened to the fire of the sun and the light from it: love is like the sun's fire, and truth proceeding from love is like the light proceeding from the sun; likewise, and by correspondence, fire signifies love, and light signifies the truth proceeding from it."
E. Swedenborg
We cannot tear out a single page from our lives, although we can easily throw the book itself into the fire."
Jean-Paul Sartre
"Happiness is when you are understood. Great happiness is when you are loved. True happiness is when you love." Confucius
"A person's happiness lies somewhere between freedom and discipline." I. P. Pavlov
"It is only a person's thoughts, not external circumstances, that make them unhappy or happy. By controlling their thoughts, they control their happiness."
F. Nietzsche
"Sometimes you have to fight even yourself for happiness."
J. Austen, "Pride and Prejudice"
"Whenever we are happy, we are always kind; but whenever we are kind, we are not always happy."
O. Wilde, "The Picture of Dorian Gray"
"There is no need for temples, nor for complicated philosophy. My brain and my heart are my temples. My philosophy is kindness." The 14th Dalai Lama
"Kindness is something the deaf can hear and the blind can see." Mark Twain
"There is no quality rarer than true kindness: most people who consider themselves kind are merely indulgent or weak."
F. de La Rochefoucauld
"Whoever does good to another does good to himself, not in terms of the consequences, but through the very act of doing good, since the awareness of having done good already brings great joy in itself."
Seneca the Younger