Quotes – Page 2 – Jeremiah Stanghini

We are Just One Small Adjustment Away from Making Our Lives Work

Have you seen the movie, How Do You Know? It’s a 2010 romantic comedy starring Paul Rudd and Reese Witherspoon. It also has Owen Wilson and Jack Nicholson in it. If you like romantic comedies, there’s a good chance you’ll enjoy the movie. It’s a movie written and directed by James L. Brooks who also directed As Good As It Gets.

Anyhow, there’s a quote (from Paul Rudd’s character) that I wanted to share with you. I think you might find it… enlightening. To put it in context: Paul Rudd’s character (George) is trying to decide whether he wants to go to prison for his dad (Jack Nicholson). To make this decision, he needs to find out whether the girl he loves Lisa (Reese Witherspoon) would rather be with Matty (Owen Wilson), who she’s currently with, or him. I found a version of this clip on YouTube, so I’ve also included it below the dialogue I transcribed from watching the clip.

George: This is only half the gift. It doesn’t work without the story. This stuff was invented by this man in Central Ohio as white goo and he used it to remove soot off of wall paper from old-fashioned heating. So, when gas and electric heating came, there was no longer a need for the cleaning goo. So, the guy was going under. But, his sister-in-law, was a nursery school teacher.

Lisa: Now, is this a true story?

George: The man’s name was Joe McVicker. His sister-in-law was Kay Zufall.

Lisa: OK, I believe you.

George: So, Kay Zufall, discovered that her little kids liked squeezing the goo a lot more than hard modeling clay. So, she suggested to her brother-in-law, Joe, they color the stuff and call it play-doh.

Lisa: Hey, nice.

George: So, I have kept this for a long time as proof that we are just one small adjustment away from making our lives work.

A Collection of Scriptures for Guidance: Islam, Part 4

Note: the first two paragraphs are introductory and are derived from the first post in this series. I’ll continue to repost them, in case this is your first time reading a post from this series.

When I was still a doctoral candidate at Sofia University, one of the courses I completed was “World Religions.” This was one of the classes I enjoyed the most during my time at Sofia University. I’d never had such broad exposure to the world’s religions before and this class really allowed me to gain a better understanding of them.

One of the papers I wrote for that class really tied in the fact that I was in a clinical psychology PhD program. The purpose of the paper was to collect quotes from scriptures of the various world religions that I could use with clients/patients when I became a therapist. While I’m no longer pursuing a PhD in clinical psychology, the quotes I collected could certainly be of use, so I thought I’d share them here.

Today’s collection of scriptures for guidance comes courtesy of Islam. Enjoy!

Anxiety

Any who believes in his Lord has no fear, either of loss or of any injustice. (Qur’an 72.13)

Anger

Abu Huraira reported God’s Messenger as saying, “The strong man is not the good wrestler; the strong man is only he who controls himself when he is angry.” (Hadith of Bukhari and Muslim)

Addiction

You who believe! Intoxicants and gambling… are an abomination – of Satan’s handiwork: eschew such that you may prosper. Satan’s plan is to stir up enmity and hatred among you by means of liquor and gambling, and to hinder you from the remembrance of God and from prayer. Will you not abstain? (Qur’an 5.90-91)

Death

And He originated the creation of man out of clay,
then He fashioned his progeny of an extraction of mean water,
then He shaped him, and breathed His spirit in him. (Qur’an 32.8-9)

Know that the present life is but a sport and a diversion, an adornment and a cause of boasting among you, and a rivalry in wealth and children. It is as a rain whose vegetation pleases the unbelievers; then it withers, and you see it turning yellow, then it becomes straw. And in the Hereafter there is grievous punishment, and forgiveness from God and good pleasure; whereas the present life is but the joy of delusion. (Qur’an 57.20)

Depression

Who is it that Sustains you (in life) From the sky and from the earth? Or who is it that Has power over hearing And sight? And who Is it that brings out The living from the dead And the dead from the living? And who is it that Rules and regulates all affairs? They will soon say, “God.” Say, “Will ye not then Show piety (to him)?” (Surat Viunus, 10, 31)

O my Servants who have transgressed against their souls! Despair not of the Mercy of God: for God forgives All sins: for He is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful. (Surat al-Zumar, 39, 53)

Grief

Abu Dharr reported God’s Messenger as saying, “I see what you do not see and I hear what you do not hear; heaven has groaned, and it has a right to groan.” (Hadith of Ahmad, Tirmidhi and Ibn Majah)

Though wouldst only, perchance, Fret thyself to death, Following after them, in grief, If they believe not In this Message. (Surat al-Kahf 18, 6)

Guilt

Say, “If you love God, follow me, and God will love you, and forgive you all your sins; God is All-forgiving, All-compassionate.” (Qur’an 3.31)

Say, “O my Servants who have transgressed against their souls! Despair not of the mercy of God: for God forgives all sins: for He is Oft-forgiving, Most Merciful.” (Qur’an 39.53)

If you were not to commit sins, God would have swept you out of existence and would have replaced you with another people who have committed sin, and then asked for God’s forgiveness, that He might grant them pardon. (Hadith of Muslim)

If you liked this post, you might like one of the other posts in this series:

A Collection of Scriptures for Guidance: Confucianism, Part 3

Note: the first two paragraphs are introductory and are derived from the first post in this series. I’ll continue to repost them, in case this is your first time reading a post from this series.

Today’s collection of scriptures for guidance comes courtesy of Confucianism. Enjoy!

Anxiety

The Master said, “What need has nature of thought and care? In nature all things return to their common source and are distributed along different paths; through one action, the fruits of a hundred thoughts are realized. What need has nature of thought, of care?” (I Ching, Great Commentary, 2.5.1)

When you have faults, do not fear to abandon them. (Confucius)

Addiction

Men who are grave and wise, Though they drink, are mild and masters of themselves; But those who are benighted and ignorant Are devoted to drink, and more so daily. Be careful, each of you, of your deportment – What heaven confers, when once lost, is not regained. (Book of Songs, Ode 196)

Death

The union of seed and power produces all things; the escape of soul and brings about change. Through this we come to know the conditions of outgoing and returning spirits. (I Ching, Great Commentary, 1.4.2)

Depression

Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising everytime we fall. (Confucius)

Everything has its beauty, but not everyone sees it. (Confucius)

Grief

Never give a sword to a man who can’t dance. (Confucius)

Guilt

Wheresoever you go, go with all your heart. (Confucius)

Loneliness

Respect yourself and others will respect you. (Confucius)

If you liked this post, you might like one of the other posts in this series:

A Collection of Scriptures for Guidance: Taoism, Part 2

Note: the first two paragraphs are introductory and are derived from the first post in this series. I’ll continue to repost them, in case this is your first time reading a post from this series.

Today’s collection of scriptures for guidance comes courtesy of Taoism. Enjoy!

Anxiety

The man who has had his feet cut off in punishment discards his fancy clothes – because praise and blame no longer touch him. The chained convict climbs the highest peak without fear – because he has abandoned all thought of life and death. These two are submissive and unashamed because they have forgotten other men, and by forgetting other men they have become men of Heaven. You may treat such men with respect and they will not be angry. Only because they are one with the Heavenly Harmony can they be like this. (Chuang Tzu, 23)

Anger

A person in danger should not try to escape at one stroke. He should first calmly hold his own, then be satisfied with small gains, which will come by creative adaptations. (I Ching)

Death

Look upon life as a swelling tumor, a protruding goiter, and upon death as the draining of a sore or the bursting of a boil. (Chuang Tzu, 6)

Birth is not a beginning; death is not an end. There is existence without limitation; there is continuity without a starting point. Existence without limitation is space. Continuity without a starting point is time. There is birth, there is death, there is issuing forth, there is entering in. That through which one passes in and out without seeing its form, that is the Portal of God. (Chuang Tzu, 23)

Depression

He who knows other men is discerning; he who knows himself is intelligent. He who overcomes others is strong; he who overcomes himself is mighty. He who is satisfied with his lot is rich; he who goes on acting with energy has a (firm) will.

He who does not fail in the requirements of his position, continues long; he who dies and yet does not perish, has longevity. (Tao Te Ching, 33)

Grief

The valley spirit dies not, aye the same;
The female mystery thus do we name.
Its gate, from which at first they issued forth,
Is called the root from which grew heaven and earth.
Long and unbroken does its power remain,
Used gently, and without the touch of pain. (Tao Te Ching, 6)

Guilt

The Tao in its regular course does nothing (for the sake of
doing it), and so there is nothing which it does not do.

If princes and kings were able to maintain it, all things would of
themselves be transformed by them.

If this transformation became to me an object of desire, I would
express the desire by the nameless simplicity.

Simplicity without a name
Is free from all external aim.
With no desire, at rest and still,
All things go right as of their will. (Tao Te Ching, 37)

If you liked this post, you might like one of the other posts in this series:

Primal Religions

A Collection of Scriptures for Guidance: Primal Religions, Part 1

A couple of weeks ago, I shared something that I wrote for a paper this semester about Canada needing to diversify its export strategy. The recent news of Edward Snowden reminded me of a paper I wrote this semester for a different course. Writing both of those posts reminded me that I’ve written plenty of papers that you might find interesting, so I thought I’d dig into my old files and see what’s worth sharing.

As the title of this post suggests, the quotes in today’s post are geared towards “primal religions.” Enjoy!

Anger

The fly cannot be driven away by getting angry at it. (Idoma Proverb, Nigeria)

When a man goes to sacrifice he must remain peaceful, without a hot heart. He must stay thus for at least a day. If he quarrels on that day or is hot in his heart he becomes sick and destroys the words of the lineage and of the sacrifice. (Luhya Saying, Kenya)

Death

Onyame does not die, I will therefore not die. (Akan Proverb, Ghana)

Some day the Great Chief Above will overturn the mountains and the rocks. Then the spirits that once lived in the bones buried there will go back into them. At present those spirits live in the tops of the mountains, watching their children on earth and waiting for the great change which is to come. The voices of these spirits can be heard in the mountains at all times. Mourners who wail for their dead hear spirit voices reply, and thus they know that their lost ones are always near. (Yakima Tradition)

Grief

Abuk, mother of Deng,
Leave your home in the sky and come to work in our homes,
Make our country to become clean like this original home of Deng,
Come make our country as one: the country of Akwol
Is not as one, either by night or by day,
The child called Deng, his face has become sad,
The children of Akwol have bewildered their Chief’s mind. (Dinka Song, Sudan)

50 Common Misquotations, but no Howard Thurman

If you follow my Facebook page, you certainly know that I like quotes. For the last 200 days or so, I’ve shared a quote of the day. Sometimes, two! I’ve also written about quotes here on the site. So, when I saw that Mental Floss‘s latest list video was about misquotations, I was pretty stoked!

Most of the quotes in the video I had heard of and knew that they were misattributed, but there were a few surprises. Most of all, I was disappointed not to see one of the quotes that I’ve written about before on the list. I understand that there are lots of misattributions with regard to quotes and 50 is only a small sample, but I really had hoped to see it in there — because it’s a good one! Watch the video and afterwards, I’ll remind you of the quote to which I’m referring.

There are some really good quotes in there, don’t you think? I’d be interested to hear which one’s your favorite — let me know by leaving a comment.

Anyway, the quote that I wanted to see in there:

Do not ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and then go do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.

It’s often attributed to Harold Thurman Whitman (which isn’t actually a person). My guess is it’s some amalgamation with Walt Whitman and the real author of the quote: Howard Thurman. I wrote more about the quote a couple of years ago.

Tying Up Loose Ends: Food for Thought and Brief Hiatus

Since moving to the new domain (www.JeremiahStanghini.com), this has been the longest time between posts. The last post I wrote was on April 5th. The hiatus from posting will continue for a little while after this post because I’m working on the last requirements for finishing my MBA. There are about 3 weeks left until the end of exam period, so I’ve got a few papers/presentations to finish and a lot of grading of papers/exams.

Whenever I open my computer I see the list of posts that I’ve been meaning to write. In an effort to “clear out some mental space,” I thought I’d do what I’ve done a couple of times in the past and flush out my list of posts to write. In this way, the list will be fresh for when I come back (save for the few cognitive biases that I still want to write about). So, without further adieu, here are some of the things that I had planned on expanding upon. I hope you enjoy!

Cars and Transportation — It’d be really cool if they could *feasibly* develop a car that could transform. A car that could be a single-passenger when commuting, but it could expand/transform into 2, 3, or 4 seats when it necessary.

Political Ideology — What if a given political ideology’s thoughts/plans don’t work unless they can be fully implemented? And because there’s a split in Parliament/Congress, it’s worse. But what if when either party had total control, it’d be worse than this middle-ground between the two ideas?

LeBron James vs. Michael Jordan — A few weeks before the conversation about LeBron vs. Jordan started, I’d had it on my to do list to write about it. I was a bit peeved when the conversation started (without me), but there were some interesting (and some not) things written about it. I think it’s extremely difficult to compare players across decades. It’s akin to comparing players across sports! I remember a few years ago when there was talk that Alex Rodriguez would be the greatest baseball player ever. I think it’s safe to say that conversation has died down a little.

Fear of Public Speaking — I was thinking back to one of the first times I had to stand up in front of a group of people and give a speech. I don’t even remember what I spoke about — but I do remember one of the speeches from my classmates who did quite well (it was about the NBA dunk contest). As I watch some folks present in front of rooms, I can empathize with their nervousness. Heck, even I still get a bit nervous sometimes. One thing I’ve learned — it’s really about repetition. The more times I’ve spoke in front of groups of people, the less nervous I get the next time I go up there. (On a slightly related note: I’d say another key factor in minimizing fear of public speaking is the extent to which you’re prepared to speak on the topic. Read: know your stuff!)

Focus on Labor — I’ve never been the CEO or a highly placed Vice President of a company, but from an outsider’s perspective, I always have a hard time understanding the lack of focus on the labor force. At times, it really looks like labor is the key to success. If the labor force is well taken care of, production and profits tend to do well. It reminds me of that post I did about sustainability and pitchers. The relation here is that when management takes care of the labor force, it is with an eye towards long-term sustainability.

Life, Liberty, and Property? — Why is property so valued? What about nomads or North Americans who show us that land isn’t to be owned? What about animals? They don’t seem to own land.

Star Trek: Inheritance — This is an episode from the final season of Star Trek: The Next Generation. The gist of is that Data has to decide whether or not he’s going to tell his mother that she is an android (when she believes she’s a human). In thinking about this episode, I wondered about the ethics of telling someone they aren’t who they think they are. What about an adopted child?

Social Entrepreneurship — George Mason University‘s Center For Social Entrepreneurship has a massive open online course (MOOC) in social entrepreneurship. If you wanna learn about social entrepreneurship, this is a great place to start!

“I AM” — I saw the movie I AM quite some time ago and there were some cool things that stood out to me. I’ll be brief:

The HeartMath Institute — check them out! They’re doing some fascinating work.
Animals are more likely to cooperate than we may have first thought. There was a reference to a journal article about how a herd of deer decided to go in a given direction after hydrating at a water hole.
Rumi poetry is medicine for the soul.
I am continually amazed at the kinds of things that are correlated with Random Number Generators.
Did you know that the word “Love” appears 95 times in Darwin’s “The Descent of Man?”
A great quote that Desmond Tutu read: “God looked at me and said, all I have is you.”

And so that clears off most of my list. Look for a new post sometime in the next month, but probably not for the next 3 weeks. Happy end of April and early May!

It is Important to Speak, but not More Important than it is to Listen

A couple of days ago I wrote a post about leadership and followership, the overwhelming majority of literature dedicated to leadership, and the dearth of literature dedicated to followership. When writing that post, it reminded me of the same relationship between speaking and listening. That is, how much literature do we see dedicated to speaking or communicating and how much do we see dedicated to listening?

Don’t get me wrong, I think that communication is an essential part of the human experience, but dont we think that learning to listen should be equally (if not more?) important than speaking. We can make the same comparison we did with leadership: how much time do we spend speaking in relation to how much time we spend listening? We spend far more of our time listening. So, shouldn’t it follow that we need to learn how to be excellent listeners?

Of course, if we don’t know how to speak (at all) then the listening is futile, but I suspect that if the majority of people were excellent listeners, we might be able to aid the speaker in communicating their point. Just as I made the case with followers who can make a leader better, I think that listeners can make a speaker better, too.

A slight tangent: how many courses are there in communication? There are probably quite a few more than there are in listening. In fact, there’s even an entire academic discipline dedicated to communication. Is there one for listening? Some may argue that clinical/counseling psychology might be how listening creeps its way into an academic discipline, but that’s only one piece of the training for clinical/counseling psychologists. It’s important to note that psychologists who don’t go the route of counseling won’t get this kind of training, so it’s necessary to specify clinical/counseling.

I like to think I’m a pretty good listener (and have been given affirmative feedback), but I don’t doubt that I would benefit from the insights of academic research on listening. In fact, I bet we all could benefit from academic research on listening. Until then, we’ll have to rely on the wisdom of quotes:

“Wise men speak because they have something to say; fools because they have to say something.” – Plato

“When people talk, listen completely. Most people never listen.” – Ernest Hemingway

“If A equals success, then the formula is A equals X plus Y and Z, with X being work, Y play, and Z keeping your mouth shut.” – Albert Einstein

“Everything has been said before, but since nobody listens we have to keep going back and beginning all over again.” – Andre Gide

“Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply.” – Stephen Covey

“We have two ears and only one tongue in order that we may hear more and speak less.” – Diogenes Laërtius

And one last one that I really like:

“You cannot truly listen to anyone and do anything else at the same time.” – M. Scott Peck

The Law of Flotation was not Discovered by Contemplating the Sinking of Things

“… but by contemplating the floating of things which floated naturally, and then intelligently asking why they did so.”

The title of this post and the line above come courtesy of a passage from a book called The Wisdom of Thomas Troward. If I’m being honest, this book is not where I first came across this bit of wisdom. In fact, I first heard it in a movie I saw a couple of years ago called, “You Can Heal Your Life.” For those familiar with those 5 words, yes, there’s a book by that name by Louise Hay. The movie is also by Louise Hay (about her life and her work). If you’ve never heard of Louise Hay, I’d encourage you to check her out — there’s a good chance you might find her work useful. Millions of other people have.

Let’s get back to that quote, though.

On its face, the quote might not make much sense, so I’ll put it in context. Before we used steel for boats, wood was the common element. Why was wood used? Well — quite simply — it didn’t sink. Let’s think about that for a moment. People used wood to make their boats because it wouldn’t sink — not because it floated — because it wouldn’t sink. That might seem like an inconsequential detail, but when the frame of the problem is “don’t sink,” it alters the number of solutions that are available. I should say, it alters the number of solutions that will be readily available to you. Why? Because we’re so focused on solving the problem of “don’t sink,” we might not see the solution that lies in the principles of flotation (see: displacement).

And that’s just it, until someone took a step back and looked at the problem from the perspective of flotation, discovering the principles of displacement was never going to be possible.

So — what is it in your life that you’re so focused on that won’t let you see the forest for the trees? Or, in what ways are you trying not to sink when you should be focused on how to float?

In The End, Everything Will Be OK – If It’s Not OK, It’s Not Yet The End

It’s no secret that I like quotes. Since converting my Facebook profile to a Facebook page, I’ve gotten into the habit of sharing a “quote of the day.” If my calculations are correct, I’ve been sharing quotes of the day for over 80 days now. As you’ll notice that I also have a quotes category, I’ve shared a number of quotes here on this site, too. And if I think back to the days of AIM (AOL Instant Manager), I often had quotes as my “away” message. And even before then, I remember really liking quotes in high school and in elementary (or grade) school. So, like I said, it’s no secret that I like quotes.

As you may have noticed, the title of this post is a quote. I’ve seen this quote in many places — most recently, on a Harvard Business Review comment:

Failure is seldom fatal or final. I loved the line in The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel movie. “It will be alright in the end and if it is not alright, it is not the end.”

Some may quibble over the word “alright” vs. the word “OK,” but the essence of the quote is the same. After seeing it there, I felt motivated to find the original author. Not that I was planning on digging through reams of archives at an historic library, but just that I thought with some Google-sleuthing, I’d be able to figure it out. It’s a quote that I often see unattributed and I thought to myself that someone had to have said that at some point, right? I did something like this about 18 months ago, when I wrote a post about a great quote being often incorrectly attributed to Howard Whitman — when in fact it was spoken by Howard Thurman.

So, after some Google-sleuthing, I came to a Wikipedia page for Fernando Sabino, who was a Brazilian writer. On that page were a few quotes, one of which read:

“No fim, tudo dá certo. Se não deu, ainda não chegou ao fim.”

The translation follows:

“In the end, everything will be ok. If it’s not ok, it’s not yet the end.”

Having seen how incorrect Wikipedia can be sometimes (pranksters, of course), I thought I’d wait for a while before being sure that this was correct. [Note: I originally wanted to include a link to an image I uploaded to Twitter that showed “Buddha” as the author of The Hunger Games, but apparently old images on Twitter are deleted — or something like that. So, you’ll just have to imagine that there was a screengrab showing “Buddha” as the author on The Hunger Games Wikipedia page.] And then I thought, this Wikipedia page probably isn’t visited nearly as often as The Hunger Games page, so I thought I could trust it. So, I plugged the same Portuguese from the page into Google Translate (just to see if it was the same), and I got a similar quote to the English that appears on the page.

My next step was to see if I could find this quote attributed to him somewhere else on the Internet. Since this quote is often unattributed, this took a bit more time. When I noticed I was hitting a bit of a roadblock, I thought I’d see if I could find other pages on the web of Sabino — and I did! I found a Facebook page for him. While it doesn’t take “too” much effort to create a Facebook page, I noticed that there were almost 2000 likes and that the page has been around for 3+ years. I noticed that the quote was also on the Facebook page. And next to the quote was this:

– Fonte: “No fim dá certo”

When I plugged this into Google Translate, it said, “- Source: “In the end it works.” So, now I had a source! In looking for that source in English, I didn’t have much luck, so I used the Portuguese. One of the first Google results was a book! The book was also available on Google Books, (but I couldn’t see very much of it, so searching the book for the quote was difficult). Not to mention that I don’t speak Portuguese and sometimes, when you look for words on Google Books, they don’t always show as being there (even though they are there).

It’s still quite possible that I fell victim to some sort of hoax (not as elaborate as Lance Armstrong or Manti T’eo, though). I am fairly confident (at least 90%) that Fernando Sabino is the original author of this quote.