Topics · Business & Career
Wisdom about craft & mastery.
What people have learned about craft & mastery 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.
Energy is eternal delight.
The painter should aim at universality.
There is no wealth but life.
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.
And when (one with the highest excellence) does not wrangle (about his low position), no one finds fault with him.
The way of man is froward and strange: but as for the pure, his work is right.
Nothing will come of nothing.
The busy bee has no time for sorrow.
The painter strives and competes with nature.
When we build, let us think that we build for ever.
Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.
The greatest natural genius cannot subsist on its own stock.
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.
A just weight and balance are the Lord’s: all the weights of the bag are his work.
If music be the food of love, play on.
What is now proved was once only imagined.
The mind of the painter must resemble a mirror.
Nature contains the elements, in colour and form, of all pictures.
A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.
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 wicked worketh a deceitful work: but to him that soweth righteousness shall be a sure reward.
Suit the action to the word, the word to the action.
The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.
He is a poor disciple who does not excel his master.
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.
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.
Say not, I will do so to him as he hath done to me: I will render to the man according to his work.
The play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king.
Eternity is in love with the productions of time.
Painting is adorned with infinite possibilities which sculpture cannot command.
All in the world know the beauty of the beautiful, and in doing this they have (the idea of) what ugliness is; they all know the skill of the skilful, and in doing this they have (the idea of) what the want of skill is.
Our revels now are ended. These our actors, as I foretold you, were all spirits and are melted into air, into thin air.
No bird soars too high, if he soars with his own wings.
The painter who works from nature should have a window, which he can raise and lower.
How irresolute did those (earliest rulers) appear, showing (by their reticence) the importance which they set upon their words! Their work was done and their undertakings were successful, while the people all said, 'We are as we are, of ourselves!'
The highest excellence is like (that of) water. The excellence of water appears in its benefiting all things, and in its occupying, without striving (to the contrary), the low place which all men dislike. Hence (its way) is near to (that of) the Tao.
When gold and jade fill the hall, their possessor cannot keep them safe. When wealth and honours lead to arrogancy, this brings its evil on itself. When the work is done, and one's name is becoming distinguished, to withdraw into obscurity is the way of Heaven.
Who thinks his great achievements poor Shall find his vigour long endure. Of greatest fulness, deemed a void, Exhaustion ne'er shall stem the tide. Do thou what's straight still crooked deem; Thy greatest art still stupid seem, And eloquence a stammering scream.
(The Tao) produces (all things) and nourishes them; it produces them and does not claim them as its own; it does all, and yet does not boast of it; it presides over all, and yet does not control them. This is what is called 'The mysterious Quality' (of the Tao).
The government that seems the most unwise, Oft goodness to the people best supplies; That which is meddling, touching everything, Will work but ill, and disappointment bring. Misery!—happiness is to be found by its side! Happiness!—misery lurks beneath it! Who knows what either will come to in the end?
He who knows these two things finds in them also his model and rule. Ability to know this model and rule constitutes what we call the mysterious excellence (of a governor). Deep and far-reaching is such mysterious excellence, showing indeed its possessor as opposite to others, but leading them to a great conformity to him.