Topics · Business & Career
Wisdom about wisdom for builders.
What people have learned about wisdom for builders the hard way, and what the classics said about it first.
Discussions
Community rules
- Speak from experience. Say what you lived and what you learned. Advice without a story is easy to ignore.
- Be kind to the person. Disagree with an idea as much as you like. Never with someone’s worth.
- Not a substitute for care. Nothing here is medical, legal or financial advice. In crisis, reach out to local services.
- No selling. No promotion, referral links or pitching your course.
From the library
Brevity is the soul of wit.
There is no wealth but life.
The painter should aim at universality.
Energy is eternal delight.
Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist.
Invention is one of the great marks of genius.
Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.
The fault of others is easily perceived, but that of oneself is difficult to perceive.
Love is anterior to life, posterior to death, initial of creation, and the exponent of breath.
Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.
Vanity working on a weak head produces every sort of mischief.
I would make the people return to the use of knotted cords (instead of the written characters).
Fools make a mock at sin: but among the righteous there is favour.
Nothing will come of nothing.
The truth shall make you free.
The painter strives and competes with nature.
What is now proved was once only imagined.
Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.
The greatest natural genius cannot subsist on its own stock.
And when (one with the highest excellence) does not wrangle (about his low position), no one finds fault with him.
Every purpose is established by counsel: and with good advice make war.
We are such stuff as dreams are made on.
When we build, let us think that we build for ever.
The mind of the painter must resemble a mirror.
The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.
A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.
Every one in the world knows that the soft overcomes the hard, and the weak the strong, but no one is able to carry it out in practice.
The desire of the slothful killeth him; for his hands refuse to labour.
Suit the action to the word, the word to the action.
Nature contains the elements, in colour and form, of all pictures.
He is a poor disciple who does not excel his master.
Eternity is in love with the productions of time.
The ancients who showed their skill in practising the Tao did so, not to enlighten the people, but rather to make them simple and ignorant.
The hearing ear, and the seeing eye, the Lord hath made even both of them.
Full fathom five thy father lies; of his bones are coral made.
Two are better than one; because they have a good reward for their labour.
Painting is adorned with infinite possibilities which sculpture cannot command.
No bird soars too high, if he soars with his own wings.
What other men (thus) teach, I also teach. The violent and strong do not die their natural death. I will make this the basis of my teaching.
The labour of the righteous tendeth to life: the fruit of the wicked to sin.
The play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king.
Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest.
The painter who works from nature should have a window, which he can raise and lower.
He who would assist a lord of men in harmony with the Tao will not assert his mastery in the kingdom by force of arms. Such a course is sure to meet with its proper return.
The way of man is froward and strange: but as for the pure, his work is right.
The world is grown so bad that wrens make prey where eagles dare not perch.
A state may be ruled by (measures of) correction; weapons of war may be used with crafty dexterity; (but) the kingdom is made one's own (only) by freedom from action and purpose.
In all labour there is profit: but the talk of the lips tendeth only to penury.