Stepping Stones

Whatever you’re doing now is just a stepping-stone to the next project or adventure. Any rut you get into is one you can get yourself out of.

— Timothy Ferriss, 4-Hour Work Week

Similar Posts

  • Hurry

    When you want to hurry something, that means you no longer care about it and want to get on to other things.

    — Robert Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

  • Misunderstanding Others

    It is hard for a free fish to understand what is happening to a hooked one.

    — Karl A. Menninger, The Human Mind

    This quote is a more poetic version of the one I posted yesterday that said, “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.”

    According to Dr. George Watson at the University of Delaware, Karl Menninger was an early psychoanalyst who was probably referring to the criminal mind in this quote. Dr. Watson provides an expanded context of the quote.

  • Shoeless Paraprosdokian

    Before you criticize a man, walk a mile in his shoes. That way, you will be a mile away and he won’t have any shoes.

    — Unknown

    How could I resist? After yesterday’s exhortation to embrace empathy, it seemed only fitting to also quote a brilliant variation on the old moccasins quote.

    It turns out that the above quote is a perfect example of a paraprosdokian – a figure of speech in which the latter part of a sentence or phrase is surprising or unexpected in a way that causes the reader or listener to reframe the first part. Other good examples include my previous post from Ellen DeGeneres or my all time favorite, “When I die I want to go peacefully in my sleep, like my grandfather did . . . and not screaming and yelling like the passengers in his car.”

  • If You’re Alive…

    Look, I really don’t want to wax philosophic, but I will say that if you’re alive, you’ve got to flap your arms and legs, you got to jump around a lot, you got to make a lot of noise, because life is the very opposite of death. And therefore, as I see it, if you’re quiet, you’re not living. You’ve got to be noisy, or at least your thoughts should be noisy, colorful and lively.

    — Mel Brooks

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