I have a similar one.

the day you stop questioning your sanity is the day you have lost your mind.

I can't post the whole Qur'an (and, as a message from the Divine, it's hard to call it "wisdom", it's a bit more uhh axiomatic than that), and I won't post the entirety of Ecclesiastes (but if you're in a moment of existential questioning, I think reading it would be very helpful!), but I will post a passage from the NT, Matthew 25-34, because it might be useful to some of you as it has been to me (and my somewhat anxious wife likes it too!).

"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?

And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."

Excellent. I'm also partial to this bit in the Drumhead:

With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably.

The missile knows where it is at all times. It knows this because it knows where it isn't. By subtracting where it is from where it isn't, or where it isn't from where it is (whichever is greater), it obtains a difference, or deviation.

Konfuzius or whatever

At a certain level of self-awareness, it will inevitably happen regularly that one finds oneself repulsive.

I forget who said it.

The most likely way for the world to be destroyed, most experts agree, is by accident. That's where we come in; we're computer professionals. We cause accidents.

Nathaniel Borenstein.

Pen is mightier than sword, France is Bacon.

And when all wars are done, a butterfly will still be beautiful -Ruskin Bond

"There is no healing of thy bruise; thy wound is grievous: all that hear the bruit of thee shall clap the hands over thee: for upon whom hath not thy wickedness passed continually?" - Nahum 3:19

I'm not religious by the way

If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you.

This quote from LBJ centres me. Its been the conservative tactic for literally decades, from African Americans, to lgbtq+, to immigrants; it's always been the same grift:

• Choose your marginalised group-du-jour.
• Convince a whole lot of stupid people that that group is the cause of all their problems.
• Profit.

Its honestly astonishing how blatant it really is.

I've always loved the dichotomy between "I think, therefore I am" versus "To be, is to be perceived". Also, "life is what happens to you while you are making other plans".

Two of my favorite are from Antoine de Saint-Exupery:

"What makes the desert beautiful is that somewhere it hides a well."

"We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children." (Also attributed as a Native American proverb)

The second one is mesmerizing. Never heard it, or a variation of it before. Thanks!

“Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good enough”

“Comparison is the thief of joy”

ELI5?

"The impediment to action advances action. What's in the way becomes the way."

This is basically saying that anything that gets in the way of you solving a problem becomes the new problem to solve.

"The tool works at both ends."

This is about skill building and practice. Making cool stuff improves you as a result.

Something I like about each is that they work in reverse. No impediment in your way? You're probably not going to have very focused forward movement. No need to use tools (literally or metaphorically)? You won't become more skilled.

It's basically about how bad things can happen repeatedly in history, even if people knew those things were bad the first time around. It may simply look different enough so people don't take it seriously the second time around, maybe seem not as threatening or even ridiculous, but it ends up causing the same kind of harm. But that second time is no longer a tragedy - because a tragedy is basically something that takes the world by surprise and has horrible effects. Marx calls the second time a "farce" - it's something that is ridiculous and avoidable and stupid and by all accounts everyone should have prevented it from happening.

“Give everything you can, but never anything you need.”

I try to live by this. I give away every extra dollar, and help people every chance I get

If idioms count then my favorite is this one:

"I see," said the blind man to his deaf wife over the phone.

My father would always say that to me growing up if i took too long to explain something 😅

I've heard it as "never trust a fart after forty."

We must imagine Sisyphus as happy

I won't break it down, plenty of people have done that already. It's one of those sorta zen points that's both almost trivial and very difficult to understand

Hope for the best; prepare for the worst.

Being neurodivergent, this is the most efficient way to mentally deal with change (i fucking hate change even though its the only constant in life)

Don't be a cunt!

!quotes@lemmy.ca

Rationality is not a character trait, it's a process. If you fool yourself into believing that you're rational by default, you open yourself up to the most irrational thinking.

“The impediment to action advances action. What’s in the way becomes the way.” […]

I think another quote similar to this is:

In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.

[Albert Einstein] ^[2]^

“Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good enough” […]

I think some other quotes similar to this are:

• There is never a good time to do anything. ^[1]^

• Perfection is lots of little things done well.

  [Marco Pierre White] ^[2]^

I think the following quote is in the same vein:

Don't take refuge in the false security of consensus.

[Christopher Hitchens] ^[1]^

Not to enable the poor to share in our goods is to steal from them and deprive them of life. the goods we possess are not ours, but theirs.

• St John Chrysostom

The demands of justice must be satisfied first of all; that which is already due in justice is not to be offered as a gift of charity.

• Second Council of the Vatican

When we attend to the needs of those in want, we give them what is theirs, not ours. More than performing works of mercy, we are paying a debt of justice.

• Pope St Gregory

Three quotes referenced in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, and just one example of the dissonance between many “Christians” in the U.S. and the faith they purport to follow.

If that doesn’t get them, the fact that the concept of social justice, as in the actual coining of the term as well as the movement against capitalist exploitation brought on by the Industrial Revolution was by the Catholics does lol

The meaning behind it all is very simple, we’re all in this together, and the gifts given to us by God/nature belong to all of us. They’re not for us to hoard, or to exploit others for.

I kinda disagree with the first one. Plenty of places which do not support humans are beautiful. And I don't like the implication that to be beautiful, you must be hostile with hidden kindness underneath. I don't know if that's how Antoine meant it, though.

That is a very interesting point of view. We pile up experiences since the dawn of mankind. But I don't think it is that straight forward, in my view things are more cyclical than anything. I like the quote from Ecclesiastes for that POV better:

"There is nothing new under the sun".

"Freedom in capitalist society always remains about the same as it was in ancient Greek republics: Freedom for slave owners."

Might not agree with Lenin on everything but this one is right on spot.

Oh, my second favorite quote is also from him I had no idea

"One cannot live in society and be free from society."

I'm not sure what you mean. Nahum is a book in the bible.

•"You are what you consume"
•"Surround yourself and be around people who you want to be like"
•"Behave with others just like you want to be behaved with"

"You can make anything idiot proof, the world will just make a bigger idiot"

“Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.”
Carl Sagan

also

“A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.”

― Robert A. Heinlein

Not sure it's a quote from anywhere in particular but

"Just because you can, doesn't mean you should."

What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

• The Summer Day, Mary Oliver

It can apply in so many instances.

Big fan of

"The point of modern propaganda isn't only to misinform or push an agenda. It is to exhaust your critical thinking, to annihilate truth"

• Garry Kasparov (2015)

That is to say, don't let them shut you up.

There is a longer, more historical version of this but it escapes me at the moment.

I can only find the Hannah Arendt quote (1974)

"This constant lying is not aimed at making the people believe a lie, but at ensuring that no one believes anything anymore. A people that can no longer distinguish between truth and lies cannot distinguish between right and wrong. And [to] such a people... you can do whatever you want."

But i swear there was one that finished
"When the truth is silent, liars can move onto action"

"People, what a bunch of bastards".

- Roy from the IT Crowd.

This one speaks directly to me: "The only decision you should make while angry is to stop being angry." ~ Timothy Zahn, the Icarus series.

“Never argue with an idiot because the best possible outcome is that you’ll win an argument with an idiot”

I also like “there are some things in life you can’t change, so you shouldn’t worry about them, and there are some things in life you can change, so you shouldn’t worry about them”

Friendship is when silence between two people is comfortable.

The early bird gets the worm but the second mouse gets the cheese.

Never pass up the opportunity to pee.

And

If a restaurant serves breakfast all day, that's what you should order.

--My dad

Also,

Dont cheap out on anything that keeps you off the ground. (Tires, shoes, mattress etc)

"Sometimes, at the end of a sentence, I come out with completely the wrong fusebox. The problem with using the wrong words is a. that I don't always notice, and b. orange water gibbon bucket of plaster."

I think of this often and have to say we can all learn something from it.

[Note to add: it's a throwaway line from Monty Python sketch. Second note to add: TheWrongFusebox was my reddit username for 15 or so years.]

Love these unveiling of manipulation tactics. Especially in a time where the narrative is usually focused on the face-value of disinformation/misinformation, or straight up lying when discovered.

That's a round down range, can't pull it back