Tag: quotes

~ Mark

People tend to think that creative work is an expression of a preexisting desire or passion, a feeling made manifest, and in a way it is. As if an overwhelming anger, love, pain, or longing fills the artist or composer, as it might with any of us—the difference being that the creative artist then has no choice but to express those feelings through his or her given creative medium. I proposed that more often the work is a kind of tool that discovers and brings to light that emotional muck. Singers (and possibly listeners of music too) when they write or perform a song don’t so much bring to the work already formed emotions, ideas, and feelings as much as they use the act of singing as a device that reproduces and dredges them up.

David Byrne. I was reading Colin Marshall’s thoughts on Bicycle Diaries and remembered this quote from my own write-up.
~ Mark

It’s so easy not to realize you’re under someone else’s influence. When we tell ourselves something, it’s always in our own voice, so it naturally seems like our idea. (Though we can often hear the influence when we say things aloud to others.)

Carolyn Hax.
~ Mark

Being cheerful is really no recipe to get down to work: nothing happens until paranoia, jealousy, competitiveness and guilt arrive.

Alain de Botton.
~ Mark

They cannot admire you for intellect. Granted–but there are many other qualities of which you cannot say, “but that is not the way I am made”. So display those virtues which are wholly in your own power–integrity, dignity, hard work, self-denial, contentment, frugality, kindness, independence, simplicity, discretion, magnanimity. Do you not see how many virtues you can already display without any excuse of lack of talent or aptitude? And yet you are still content to lag behind.

Marcus Aurelius.
~ Mark

The people who move to the suburbs aren’t nearly as stupid or careless or brainwashed as the urbanites seem to think. They know they’re going to get a lawn, a garage, and a backyard. They know they will be miles from a store or cafe, and that they’ll have to drive everywhere. Most people move to the suburbs with eyes wide open, fully aware of the tradeoffs they are making. They are not looking for some pastoral idyll, but for more privacy, space, quiet, and parking.

Andrew Potter.
~ Mark

It is ridiculous not to escape from one’s own vices, which is possible, while trying to escape the vices of others, which is impossible.

Marcus Aurelius.
~ Mark

I don’t give a fuck if you’re doin’ petty shit or big shit. […] Get your motherfuckin’ money and make other people’s lives better.

Young Jeezy in “Jeezy Talks to the People”.
~ Mark

All things are short-lived–this is their common lot–but you pursue likes and dislikes as if all was fixed for eternity. In a little while you too will close your eyes, and soon there will be others mourning the man who buries you.

Marcus Aurelius on fame, death, and social media.
~ Mark

The body, too, should stay firmly composed, and not fling itself about either in motion or at rest. Just as the mind displays qualities in the face, keeping it intelligent and attractive, something similar should be required of the whole body. But all this should be secured without making an obvious point of it.

Marcus Aurelius on style, grace, comportment.
~ Mark

No more roundabout discussion of what makes a good man. Be one!

Marcus Aurelius, who then goes on to write two more chapters. Fair warning: I just finished reading this and typing up favorite parts, so brace yourself for more Marcus Aurelius quotes.
~ Mark

Always make a definition or sketch of what presents itself to your mind, so you can see it stripped bare to its essential nature and identify it clearly, in whole and in all its parts, and can tell yourself its proper name and the name of those elements of which it is compounded and into which it will be dissolved.

Marcus Aurelius. I’m taking the words out of context here so it appears that he likes sketching. I’ve been reading Martin Hammond’s Penguin translation and bookmarking every 3 paragraphs or so.
~ Mark

When we say, “What do you do?” we really mean what do you learn? Because that’s what makes a person interesting – what they are learning. No one wants to answer the question what do you do if they have a job where they are not learning. That’s how you know it’s the learning that matters.

Penelope Trunk.
~ Mark

The apparent practical success of capitalism is matched only by the failure of its public relations.

John Kay. (via)