When I was a young man, coming from a difficult upbringing, I fell into the mental trap of concluding that because other people were doing better that I was, they must be better or smarter than I was. I accidentally concluded that they were worth more than I was. I must therefore be worth less.
Paulo Coelho, Stories for Parents, Children and Grandchildren
Long ago there lived in Northern India a merchant whose wife had died and who went daily from his lonely house in the foothills to the town below, for buying and selling. "I must have a holiday," he said to himself one day, and he began to climb up into the hills to enjoy the view and the sounds of the forest.
Ryan Holiday, The 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living
Indeed, if you find anything in human life better than justice, truth, self control, courage — in short, anything better than the sufficiency of your own mind, which keeps you acting according to the demands of true reason and accepting what fate gives you outside of your own power of choice — I tell you, if you can see anything better than this, turn to it heart and soul and take full advantage of this greater good you've found. — Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 9.5
Deuteronomy 11:1-7 New International Version (NIV)
11 Love the Lord your God and keep his requirements, his decrees, his laws and his commands always.2 Remember today that your childrenwere not the ones who saw and experienced the discipline of the Lord your God: his majesty, his mighty hand, his outstretched arm;3 the signs he performed and the things he did in the heart of Egypt, both to Pharaoh king of Egypt and to his whole country;4 what he did to the Egyptian army, to its horses and chariots, how he overwhelmed them with the waters of the Red Sea as they were pursuing you, and how the Lord brought lasting ruin on them.5 It was not your children who saw what he did for you in the wilderness until you arrived at this place,6 and what he did to Dathan and Abiram, sons of Eliab the Reubenite, when the earth opened its mouth right in the middle of all Israel and swallowed them up with their households, their tents and every living thing that belonged to them.7 But it was your own eyes that saw all these great things the Lord has done.
