“Don't get so busy making a living that you forget to make a life.”
Dolly Parton (1946) American singer-songwriter and actress
Source: Wooden: A Lifetime of Observations and Reflections On and Off the Court
“Don't get so busy making a living that you forget to make a life.”
Dolly Parton (1946) American singer-songwriter and actress
Sharon Salzberg (1952) American writer
Source: The Force of Kindness: Change Your Life with Love & Compassion
Cyrano de Bergerac (1619–1655) French novelist, dramatist, scientist and duelist
The Other World (1657)
Context: You are amazed that matter can form a man when matter is all mixed up at random and so many things go into making a person. But do you not realize that before matter forms someone it has also stopped along the way to make a stone, lead, coral, a flower, or a comet because there was too much or too little of it to make a human being? No wonder, then, that an infinite amount of incessantly moving and changing matter makes up the few animals, vegetables and minerals that we see. No wonder, either, that if you throw dice a hundred times, they will all show the same numbers at some point.
This movement of matter, then, could not fail to produce something, and whatever it is will always be admired by the unthinking person who does not realize how close it came to not being made.
“Sometimes I get so caught up in my own problems that I forget how amazing the world is.”
Wendelin Van Draanen (1965) American writer
Source: Runaway
James Comey (1960) American lawyer and the seventh director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)
2010s, Hard Truths: Law Enforcement (2015)
Achille Castiglioni (1918–2002) Italian designers and architect
Achille Castiglioni, 1960 - Lierna (Lago di Como), 1971. Scultore. in: Domus Magazine, Achille Effect, Laura Bossi, 13 April 2010, ( Domusweb online https://www.domusweb.it/en/news/2010/04/13/achille-effect.html)
Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America
Source: The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream
Khosrow Bagheri (1957) Iranian philosopher of education
Source: Website of Mehr News Agency, 2017 http://www.mehrnews.com/news/3954046/%D9%BE%D8%B0%DB%8C%D8%B1%D8%B4-%D8%AE%D8%B7%D8%A7-%D8%AF%D8%B1-%D8%AA%D8%B1%D8%A8%DB%8C%D8%AA-%D8%A7%D9%86%D8%B3%D8%A7%D9%86-%D8%B6%D8%B1%D9%88%D8%B1%DB%8C-%D8%A7%D8%B3%D8%AA
Gloria Steinem (1934) American feminist and journalist
The Humanist interview (2012)
Context: There were never that many women stand-up comics in the past because the power to make people laugh is also a power that gets people upset. But the ones who were performing were making jokes on themselves usually and now that’s changed. So there are no rules exactly but I think if you see a whole group of people only being self-deprecating, it’s a problem.
But I have always employed humor, and I think it’s absolutely crucial that we do because, among other things, humor is the only free emotion. I mean, you can compel fear, as we know. You can compel love, actually, if somebody is isolated and dependent — it’s like the Stockholm syndrome. But you can’t compel laughter. It happens when two things come together and make a third unexpectedly. It happens when you learn something, too. I think it was Einstein who said he had to be careful when he shaved because if he thought of something suddenly, he’d laugh and cut himself.
So I think laughter is crucial. Some of the original cultures, like the Dalit and the Native American, don’t separate laughter and seriousness. There’s none of this kind of false Episcopalian solemnity.