The Deliberate Life

Simplicity is Perfection

Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.

                                                             — Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Simplicity

Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.

                                                                — Confucius

On Tomorrow

Live as if you were to die tomorrow.
Learn as if you were to live forever.

                                                   — Mahatma Gandi

Simple Living

As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler; solitude will not be solitude, poverty will not be poverty, nor weakness weakness.
       — Henry David Thoreau, American essayist

Procrastination

You may delay, but time will not. - Benjamin Franklin

Freedom

Freedom is not procured by a full enjoyment of what is desired, but by controlling the desire. — Epictetus

The Time Is Now

According to my watch, the time is now
The past is dead and gone
Don't try to shake it, just nod your head
Breathe in, breathe out, move on  - Jimmy Buffett

At The Core

I think everybody has to be prepared in life for failures or disappointments or frustrated dreams, or even embarrassments.  We have to be prepared to accommodate them if possible.  You have to accommodate changing times but cling to unchanging principles.  If you do have extreme change in your life that is unpleasant, what are the principles that don't change, on which you build a new life, an expanded life, a better life, a more adventurous life?  -- Jimmy Carter (as quoted in Success Built to Last - Creating a Life That Matters)

On Balance

Old places and old persons in their turn, when spirit dwells in them, have an intrinsic vitality of which youth is incapable, precisely, the balance and wisdom that come from long perspectives and broad foundations -- George Santayana

On Courage

Courage is not the towering oak that sees storms come and go; it is the fragile blossom that opens in the snow -- Alice M. Swaim

Courage is the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees the others -- Winston Churchill