Viss ir redzams

“I have no particular objection to people taking substances that make them feel better or more contended, or, for that matter, see little dancing purple fairies — or even their god if it comes to that. it’s their brain, after all, and society can have no claim on it, providing they’re not operating heavy machinery at the time.”


— Lord Vetinari on drugs

“When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: “If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.” It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?” And whenever the answer has been “No” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary. ”


— Steve Jobs, Stanford Commencement Address, 2005

“There is no escape. You can’t be a vagabond and an artist and still be a solid citizen, a wholesome, upstanding man. You want to get drunk, so you have to accept the hangover. You say yes to the sunlight and pure fantasies, so you have to say yes to the filth and nausea. Everything is within you, gold and mud, happiness and pain, the laughter of childhood and the apprehension of death. Say yes to everything, shirk nothing. Don’t try to lie to yourself. You are not a solid citizen. You are not a Greek. You are not harmonious, or the master of yourself. You are a bird in the storm. Let it storm! Let it drive you! How much have you lied! A thousand times, even in your poems and books, you have played the harmonious man, the wise man, the happy, the enlightened man. In the same way, men attacking in war have played heroes, while their bowels twitched. My God, what a poor ape, what a fencer in the mirror man is — particularly the artist — particularly myself!”

— Hermann Hesse

“Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this, too, was a gift.”


— Mary Oliver

“Nedrošība, kauns, frīkainums, neveiklība, nespēja menedžēt uztraukumu un citas komunikācijas barjeras ir galvenās lietas cilvēka dzīvē. Tādā ziņā, ka tās nosaka to, kā tev iet ar citiem cilvēkiem un kāda, šo spoguļojot, veidojas tava pašvērtība. Blogos no tā visa nav redzams pilnīgi nekas.”


— Agnese Krivade

“To live alone one must be a beast or a god, says Aristotle. Leaving out the third case: one must be both—a philosopher.”


— Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols