Atlas Shrugged. Ayn Rand

… you think that money is the root of all evil?... Have you ever asked what is the root of money? Money is a tool of exchange, which can't exist unless there are goods produced and men able to produce them… Money is not the tool of the moochers, who claim your product by tears, or of the looters, who take it from you by force. Money is made possible only by the men who produce.

[…]

But money is only a tool. It will take you wherever you wish, but it will not replace you as the driver. It will give you the means for the satisfaction of your desires, but it will not provide you with desires.

[…]

Money will not purchase happiness for the man who has no concept of what he wants: money will not give him a code of values, if he's evaded the knowledge of what to value, and it will not provide him with a purpose, if he's evaded the choke of what to seek. Money will not buy intelligence for the fool, or admiration for the coward, or respect for the incompetent. The man who attempts to purchase the brains of his superiors to serve him, with his money replacing his judgment, ends up by becoming the victim of his inferiors.

[…]

Money will always remain an effect and refuse to replace you as the cause. Money is the product of virtue, but it will not give you virtue and it will not redeem your vices. Money will not give you the unearned, neither in matter nor in spirit. Is this the root of your hatred of money?

Or did you say it's the love of money that's the root of all evil?... It's the person who would sell his soul for a nickel, who is loudest in proclaiming his hatred of money—and he has good reason to hate it. The lovers of money are willing to work for it… Let me give you a tip on a clue to men's characters: the man who damns money has obtained it dishonorably; the man who respects it has earned it.

El diccionario del diablo. Ambrose Bierce

Apetito, s. Instinto previsor implantado por la Providencia como solución al problema laboral.

Ardor, s. Cualidad que distingue al amor inexperto.

Aristocracia, s. Gobierno de los mejores. (En este sentido la palabra es obsoleta, lo mismo que esa clase de gobierno).

Arquitecto, s. El que traza los planos de nuestra casa y planea el destrozo de nuestras finanzas.

Arrepentimiento, s. Fiel servidor y secuaz del Castigo. Suele traducirse en una actitud de enmienda que no es incompatible con la continuidad del pecado.

Astucia, s. Cualidad que distingue a un animal o persona débil de otro fuerte. Acarrea a su poseedor gran satisfacción intelectual, y gran adversidad material. Un proverbio italiano dice: "EI peletero consigue más pieles de zorro que de burro".

Stitches: A Handbook on Meaning, Hope and Repair. Anne Lamott

Las personas que enseñan a otros a leer, o a navegar una biblioteca, y que no abandonan a pesar de que sus alumnos puedan tener dificultades para aprender, serán las que obtengan los mejores lugares en el cielo. Yo no sé muchas cosas, pero esto lo sé como cierto.

[...]

Para mí, enseñar es un llamado sagrado, especialmente cuando se enseña a estudiantes con menos posibilidades de obtener logros.

How to Avoid Work . William J. Reilly

For you, life can be a succession of glorious adventures. Or it can be a monotonous bore.

Take your choice!
 

Mean People Fail. Paul Graham

Another reason mean founders lose is that they can't get the best people to work for them. They can hire people who will put up with them because they need a job. But the best people have other options. A mean person can't convince the best people to work for him unless he is super convincing. And while having the best people helps any organization, it's critical for startups.

How to Avoid Work. William J. Reilly

Your life is too short and too valuable to fritter away in work.

If you don’t get out now, you may end up like the frog that is placed in a pot of fresh water on the stove. As the temperature is gradually increased, the frog feels restless and uncomfortable, but not uncomfortable enough to jump out. Without being aware that a chance is taking place, he is gradually lulled into unconsciousness.

Much the same thing happens when you take a person and put him in a job which he does not like. He gets irritable in his groove. His duties soon become a monotonous routine that slowly dulls his senses.

How to Avoid Work. William J. Reilly

Most [people] have the ridiculous notion that anything they do which produces an income is work — and that anything they do outside ‘working’ hours is play. There is no logic to that.

Schopenhauer como maestro. Friedrich Nietzsche

Nadie puede construir el puente en el que tú, y sólo tú, deberás cruzar el río de la vida. Ha de haber infinidad de senderos y puentes y semidioses que con placer te transportarían; pero sólo si estás dispuesto a pagar el precio de renunciar a ti mismo. Hay sólo un sendero en el mundo que nadie puede recorrer sino tú ¿Dónde lleva? No preguntes, ¡camina!

Self-Consciousness. John Updike

Para muchos hombres el trabajo es la religión efectiva, un ritual que los mantiene ocupados… y que les permite imaginar que se ha resuelto el problema de la muerte personal. Unamuno: 'el trabajo es el único consuelo práctico al hecho de haber nacido'. Mi propia carrera, por mi elegida… sin duda es un consuelo práctico, una especie de bicicleta que si alguna vez dejara de pedalear, me dejaría caer pesadamente sobre uno de mis costados.

We do not Dream. Claudio Ranieri

Now, we are fighting for a title. The… fans I meet in the street tell me they are dreaming. But I say to them, “Okay, you dream for us. We do not dream. We simply work hard.”

[...]

They can say to themselves, “How do I arrive at the top level?... What do you need to arrive? A big name? No. A big contract? No. You just need to keep an open mind, an open heart, a full battery, and run free.

In Praise of Love. Alain Badiou

Love cannot be reduced to the first encounter, because it is a construction. The enigma in thinking about love is the duration of time necessary for it to flourish. In fact, it isn’t the ecstasy of those beginnings that is remarkable. The latter are clearly ecstatic, but love is above all a construction that lasts. We could say that love is a tenacious adventure. The adventurous side is necessary, but equally so is the need for tenacity. To give up at the first hurdle, the first serious disagreement, the first quarrel, is only to distort love. Real love is one that triumphs lastingly, sometimes painfully, over the hurdles erected by time, space and the world.

Meditaciones. Marco Aurelio

No te arrastren los accidentes exteriores; procúrate tiempo libre para aprender algo bueno y cesa ya de girar como un trompo. En adelante, debes precaverte también de otra desviación. Porque deliran también, en medio de tantas ocupaciones, los que están cansados de vivir y no tienen blanco hacia el que dirijan todo impulso y, en suma, su imaginación.

How to Love: Thich Nhat Hanh

Amar sin saber cómo, normalmente hiere a la persona a la que pretendemos amar. Para saber cómo amar tenemos que entender a esa persona. Para entenderla, tenemos que escucharla.

Inodoro Pereyra. Roberto Fontanarrosa

- Vago no soy, quizá algo tímido para el esjuerzo.

…

- ¿Y usted cómo se gana la vida?
- ¿Ganar? ¡De casualidá estoy sacando un empate!

Eat, Pray, Love (1). Ryan Murphy & Jennifer Salt

Hay un maravilloso y viejo chiste italiano... sobre un pobre hombre que va a la iglesia todos los días... y ora delante de la estatua de un gran santo, rogando: "querido santo, por favor, por favor, por favor hazme ganar la lotería."

Luego de un tiempo la exasperada estatua cobra vida... mira al hombre que pide y le dice: "hijo mío, por favor, por favor, por favor, aunque sea una vez, compra un billete."

(1) Based on Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert

Mean People Fail. Paul Graham

…being mean makes you stupid. That's why I hate fights. You never do your best work in a fight, because fights are not sufficiently general. Winning is always a function of the situation and the people involved. You don't win fights by thinking of big ideas but by thinking of tricks that work in one particular case. And yet fighting is just as much work as thinking about real problems. Which is particularly painful to someone who cares how their brain is used: your brain goes fast but you get nowhere, like a car spinning its wheels.

Il Sappore della Vita. Giovanni Cucci

La disponibilitá a intraprendere un cammino é l'elemento basilare per l’esperienza...: mancanza di conoscenza, incapacitá, errori di valutazione, tutto puó essere recuperabile quando si ascolta il desiderio.

[...]

Il desiderio puó essere considerato come una specie di “cerniera” che unisce cognizione, affetto e volontá, elementi tutti presenti nell’atto della decisione.

[...]

Il mondo dei desideri spinge il soggetto a vivere secondo una continua espansione e rivela all’essere umano la sua potenzialitá infinita.

Rising Strong: Brené Brown

Creativity embeds knowledge so that it can become practice. We move what we’re learning from our heads to our hearts through our hands. We are born makers, and creativity is the ultimate act of integration – it is how we fold our experiences into our being... The Asaro tribe of Indonesia and Papua New Guinea has a beautiful saying: “Knowledge is only a rumor until it lives in the muscle."

Fausto. Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Estos idiotas nunca entenderán cómo van encadenados méritos y suerte. Si tuvieran la piedra filosofal les faltaría en filósofo.

Letters to a Young Poet. Rilke Rainer Maria

If your everyday life seems poor, don’t blame it; blame yourself; admit to yourself that you are not enough of a poet to call forth its riches; because for the creator there is not poverty and no poor, indifferent place. And even if you found yourself in some prison, whose walls let in none of the world’s sounds—wouldn’t you still have your childhood, that jewel beyond all price, that treasure house of memories? Turn your attentions to it. Try to raise up the sunken feelings of this enormous past; your personality will grow stronger, your solitude will expand and become a place where you can live in the twilight, where the noise of other people passes by, far in the distance. — And if out of this turning-within, out of this immersion in your own world, poems come, then you will not think of asking anyone whether they are good or not.