Quotes: Jacqueline Winspear

"Maisie set off toward the pasture as directed by Barney Love, and began walking around the edge of the field, which had been left to lie fallow and regenerate for the next planting. Most farmers adhered to the rotation system of leaving a field untouched and unused for a year before moving in livestock the following year, and in a later year planting a fresh crop in soil well fertilized by a constant supply of manure. It was a means of building resilience in the land, in the same way that a cup of Ovaltine gave the promise of a good night's sleep to a tired human being. Fallow land was rested land, and rested land was hardy." 

–– Jacqueline Winspear (b. 1955), British mystery writer 

Source: Jacqueline Winspear. A Sunlit Weapon: A Maisie Dobbs Novel. New York: Harper, 2022; p. 122. 

via: Commonplace Book 2022, 2022, p. 44-45.

Quotes: George Bernard Shaw

"A life spent in making mistakes is not only more honourable, but useful than a life spent doing nothing."

–– George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950), Irish playwright, critic, and social activist 

via: Commonplace Book, 2022, 2022, p. 31.

Quotes: Greg McKeown

"When our brains are at full capacity, everything feels harder: fatigue slows us down. Outdated assumptions and emotions make new information harder to process. The countless distractions of daily life make it difficult to see what matters clearly.

"So the first step toward making things more effortless is to clear the clutter in our heads and our hearts."

–– Greg McKeown (b. 1977), British-American writer, public speaker and business consultant 

Source: Greg McKeown. Effortless: Make It Easier to Do What Matters Most. New York: Currency, 2021; 

p. 15. via: Commonplace Book 2022, 2022, p. 19.

Quotes: Vincent van Gogh

"Great things are done by a series of small things brought together."  

–– Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890), Dutch Post-Impressionist painter 

via: Commonplace Book, 2022, 2022, p. 6.

Quotes: Japanese proverb

"With many little strokes a large tree is felled." 

–– Japanese proverb 

Source: Sarah Harvey. Kaizen: The Japanese Secret of Lasting Change. Small Steps to Big Goals. New York: The Experiment, LLC, 2019, 2020; p. 25.

via: Commonplace book 2022, 2022, p. 3.

Quotes: Steven Heighton

"In the long run, curiosity and stamina trump talent."

–– Steven Heighton (1961-2022), Canadian novelist, poet, short-story writer 

Source: Steven Heighton. Work Book. Toronto, Ontario: ECW Press, 2011, p. 25. 

via: Commonplace Book 2022, 2023, p. 113.

Quotes: Ausma Zehanat Khan

"Don't look back. There's nothing left for you in Syria. 

    "It was advice he couldn't have followed. A homeland was a place of the heart, a place of memory and belonging. To lose it, to leave, to watch it dissolve into agony, to be coerced into exile –– it was a severing of self." 

–– Ausma Zehanat Khan, Canadian-American writer 

Source: Ausma Zehanat Khan. A Dangerous Crossing. New York: Minotaur Books, 2018, p. 324. 

via: Commonplace Book 2002, 2024, p. 139.

Quotes: Oliver Burkeman

"The psychology professor Robert Boice spent his career studying the writing habits of his fellow academics, reaching the conclusion that the most productive and successful among them generally made writing a smaller part of their daily routine than the others, so that it was much more feasible to keep going with it day after day. They cultivated the patience to tolerate the fact that they probably wouldn't be producing very much on any individual day, with the result that they produced much more over the long term. They wrote in daily sessions –– sometimes as short as ten minutes, and never longer than four hours –– and they religiously took weekends off." 

–– Oliver Burkeman (b. 1975), British author and journalist 

Source: Oliver Burkeman. Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals. New York: Allen Lane/Penguin Random House, 2021, p.181. 

via: Commonplace Book, 2022, 2024, p. 140.

Quotes: Pema Chödrön

"Someone gave me a quote from James Joyce's Ulysses, where Joyce wrote about how failure can lead to discovery. And he actually didn't use the word "failure"; he used the word "mistake," as in making a mistake. He said that mistakes can be the portals of discovery.

"In other words, mistakes are the portal to creativity, to learning something new, to having a fresh look on things."

–– Pema Chödrön  (b. 1936), American Buddhist nun and author 

Source: Pema Chödrön. Fail, Fail Again, Fail Better. Boulder, Colorado: Sounds True, 2015, p. 45. 

via: Commonplace Book 2022, 2024, p. 151.

Quotes: Lao Tzu

"Do the difficult things while they are easy and do the great things while they are small. A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step."

–– Lao Tzu (c. 500 BCE), Chinese philosopher and writer 

Quotes: Doris Lessing

"What I did have, which others perhaps didn't, was a capacity for sticking at it, which really is the point, not the talent at all. You have to stick at it."

–– Doris Lessing (1919-2013), Iranian born British-Zimbabwean novelist 

Quotes: Audre Lorde

"Our feelings are our most genuine paths to knowledge."

–– Audre Lorde (1934-1992), American writer, feminist, civil rights activist and a self-described "black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet." 

Quotes: Joan Baez

"Action is the antidote to despair."

–– Joan Baez (b. 1941), American singer, songwriter, musician and activist

Quotes: William James

"My experience is what I agree to attend to. Only those items which I notice shape my mind – without selective interest, experience is an utter chaos."

–– William James (1842-1910), American psychologist and philosopher 

Quotes: Seneca

"The things you run from are inside you."

–– Seneca (4 BC - AD 65), Roman Stoic philosopher, dramatist, statesman 

Quotes: Nelson Mandela

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.

We ask ourselves, "Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?" Actually, who are you not to be? ... Your playing small does not serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you.

And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same."

–– Nelson Mandela (1918-2013), South African anti-apartheid activist, politician, South Africa's first Black president (1994-1999), winner of the Nobel Peace Prize 1993 

Source: Nelson Mandela 1994 inaugural speech, South Africa

via: Commonplace Book 1999-2001, 2002.