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15 Inspiring Quotes: A Series

August 9, 2011 by Justin Weinger

Here are some of my favorite quotes that have stayed with me over the years.  The topics are varied from social class to children to just good, fun quotes, but there’s lasting value in every one of these quotes and they never get old, no matter how many times I read and share them.

15 Inspiring Quotes

 

1. “Every man dies.  Not every man really lives.” -William Wallace in Braveheart

2. “Well, we have to end apartheid, for one, slow down the nuclear arms race, stop terrorism and world hunger.  We have to provide food and shelter for the homeless and oppose racial discrimination and promote civil rights, while also promoting equal rights for women.  We have to encourage a return to traditional moral values.  Most importantly, we have to promote general social concern and less materialism in young people.” Patrick Bateman in American Psycho

3. “Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.”

-Kahlil Gibran, On Children, The Prophet

4. “And in the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures.
For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed.”

-Kahlil Gibran, On Friendship, The Prophet

5. “We have precious few occasions nowadays for the mind to settle itself in stillness by a fire.

Instead, we watch television at the end of the day, a pale electronic fire energy, and pale in comparison.  We submit ourselves to constant bombardment by sounds and images that come from minds other than our own, that fill our heads with information and trivia, other people’s adventures and excitement and desires.  Watching television leaves even less room in the day for experiencing stillness.  It soaks up time, space and silence, a soporific, lulling us into mindless passivity.  Newspapers do much the same.  They are not bad in themselves, but we frequently conspire to use them to rob ourselves of many precious moments in which we might be living more fully.”   -Jon Kabat–Zinn, Wherever You Go, There You Are

6. “Then, as now, I was fundamentally anti-bourgeois.  To me this does not mean that I do not like beautiful things or desire material well-being.  It means that I do not sit around longing to be rich, and that I believe hedonistic materialism to be a central aspect of an imperialist colonialism that perpetuates and maintains white supremacist capitalist patriarchy.” -bell hooks, Outlaw Culture

7. “Every impulse that we strive to strangle broods in the mind, and poisons us.  The body sins once, and has done with its sin, for action is a mode of purification.  Nothing remains then but the recollection of a pleasure, or the luxury of a regret.  The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it.  Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself, with desire for what its monstrous laws have made monstrous and unlawful.” -Lord Henry in The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

8. “True intellectual inquiry is always subversive.” -Chris Hedges, Death of the Liberal Class

9. “Great artists are people who find the way to be themselves in their art. Any sort of pretension induces mediocrity in art and life alike.”  -Margot Fonteyn

10. “Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.”  -Mark Twain

11. “Every person above the ordinary has a certain mission that they are called to fulfill.” -Goethe

12. “Reading, after a certain age, diverts the mind too much from its creative pursuits. Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking.” -Albert Einstein

13. “The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day. Never lose a holy curiosity.” -Albert Einstein

14. “The only way you can write the truth is to assume that what you set down will never be read. Not by any other person, and not even by yourself at some later date. Otherwise you begin excusing yourself. You must see the writing as emerging like a long scroll of ink from the index finger of your right hand; you must see your left hand erasing it.” – Margaret Atwood

15. “Be careful what you water your dreams with. Water them with worry and fear and you will produce weeds that choke the life from your dream. Water them with optimism and solutions and you will cultivate success. Always be on the lookout for ways to turn a problem into an opportunity for success. Always be on the lookout for ways to nurture your dream.” -Lao Tzu

 

Any favorite quotes you’d like to share?  I really enjoyed putting some of my favorite quotes on one page, I think this is going to become a regular feature…

 

 

Filed Under: Self-Development

Hunter S. Thompson: Force of Insanity

August 3, 2011 by Justin Weinger

(Still working on my next post, but in the meantime…)

I have yet to pay homage on this blog to one of my favorite and most influential authors, one Hunter S. Thompson of Hell’s Angels and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas glory, along with his amazing illustrator, Ralph Steadman.  Gonzo journalism seems so right  and natural to us now and yet we would have never known it if it wasn’t for this guy…

Ralph Steadman's Scar Strangled Banger

 

Objective journalism is one of the main reasons that American politics has been allowed to be so corrupt for so long.  You can’t be objective about Nixon.  How can you be objective about Clinton?     -Hunter S. Thompson

 

Bad Craziness: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

 

Filed Under: Self-Development

Greatest Songs Ever: Don’t Worry, Be Happy

July 26, 2011 by Justin Weinger

Did you know Robin Williams was in the music video? Keep this song in your repertoire boy!!

Filed Under: Self-Development

Advice from Noam Chomsky

July 26, 2011 by Justin Weinger

Noam Chomsky

“Don’t take assumptions for granted. Begin by taking a skeptical attitude toward anything that is conventional wisdom. Make it justify itself. It usually can’t. Be willing to ask questions about what is taken for granted. Try to think things through for yourself. There is plenty of information. You have got to learn how to judge, evaluate, and compare it with other things. You have to take some things on trust or you can’t survive. But if there is something significant and important, don’t take it on trust.”

(Excerpt from Death of the Liberal Class by Chris Hedges)

 

 

Filed Under: Get Out of Debt, Government, Self-Development

5 Things I’ve Learned About Blogging While Blogging

July 7, 2011 by Justin Weinger

This is What the Blogosphere Looks Like? COOL!

Nearly every great blog is a meta-blog.  That is, it can’t help but consciously refer back to itself.  Think of it as meta-blognition (blogging about blogging).  The fact that bloggers are always talking about blogging, how to blog and how they even make a living off of their blog is part of what makes these sites so entertaining and keeps readers coming back for more.  The blogging society or industry, depending on how you view it, is unique from any other field or group of people I’ve ever studied.  If you decided to be an actor tomorrow with zero experience and zero contacts and moved to Hollywood, what kind of response would you get from the entertainment industry?  I can think of a few colorful responses and none of them sound like,”Welcome to Hollywood! I’m going to teach you EVERYTHING I KNOW so you can be just as good as me or better because your success becomes my success!  And there’s room for everyone in this town!  The more the merrier, come on in!”  And yet, that is the exact message of almost every one of the great blogs I have discovered in the past few months.  Kevin from 20smoney.com says, “As the blog grew, I started to make a little money.  I kept thinking about how anyone could do this.  Really, anyone.”

And I’ve been blogging for about a month now, so I think it is time for me to join polite blogging society and shared what I have learned so far from my own blogging adventures and from the much more sophisticated blogs that I read regularly.

5 Things You Should Know About Blogging

1. The Best Bloggers Share Everything (Part 1).  Everything I need to know about how to blog, how to monetize, how to build traffic, how to make my content more relevant and a million other important ideas on growing a site is available on hundreds and maybe thousands of popular blogs.  ABDPBT has a free ebook on maximizing online revenue by becoming your own ad network.  Geniustypes spells it out from the very beginning of starting a blog.  And Frugal Dad wants everyone to start a blog as a side hustle.  20smoney.com gives you detailed online income reports and gives you lots of ideas on building your own site.  When it’s time to start adding some aesthetic quality to your site, check out Hongkiat and Creattica.  There is no end to the amount of information and ideas that people online are willing to share with you, and most of it for free.  Sometimes it’s hard to pull myself away from learning all of these things and focusing on building my own site, but overall, the excess of information out there is an incredible tool that new bloggers have.

2. Good Content Takes Time to Write and Edit.  Dude, freaking tell me ’bout it.  I started this blog just over a month ago and I have at least 20 posts in draft stage that I am working on and I have new ideas every day for future articles.  But as I’ve said before, I’m an ideas person.  I come up with ideas constantly, but I’m not great about following through with them.  But good blogs are about consistency, and a good post can’t just be a one-liner like “I have noticed that people are getting fatter.”  This might be true, but it is not enough content for a post.  Why are they getting fatter?  Why are you noticing it? Is it because you’re also getting fatter?  Who’s been talking about fat people in the news?  Is there a new study you can link to?  So you get the point.  You want to develop a story for each post.  A good post takes at least a few hours for me, and then I let it sit for a day before going back to look at it and either edit it or add a few final touches to it.  But in the end, you’re only going to get readers based on the content you are providing, so this is where most of your time should be spent.

3. The Best Bloggers Share Everything (Part 2).  Blogs usually have a niche topic (or a broader lifestyle idea like Pioneer Woman), but in either case, they offer LOTS of information on their chosen topic.  The great bloggers are good at getting into the nitty gritty of exactly how to do something, are honest and straight-forward, and sometimes talk about controversial or uncomfortable topics.  I think the reason some of the personal finance blogs are so popular is because they are honest.  People talk about the mistakes they have made with money, but also offer tons of step by step advice on finding a new path out of debt (like this excellent article by Brian of Geniustypes), finding additional income streams and changing how we view money.  It’s easier to relate to Dave Ramsey when he tells you he has lost millions of dollars, and he learned what he preaches now the hard way.  There are of course other great blogs outside of the personal finance arena, like Steve Pavlina’s site or Design Mom, who’s just lovely in everything.

4. There is Always Something You Could Be Doing On Your Blog.  This is related to #1, in that there is so much information to learn and apply about blogging, which means that there is always something you could be doing to improve your site.  There are lots of ways to monetize your site besides Google Adsense, and with Amazon Associates out of California, bloggers have to look for other opportunities, many of which can actually make more money than Amazon.com Associates program offered.  One avenue is Text -Link Ads, which I plan to use but not until this site has at least 20 good posts and is getting more daily page views.

5. If You Write It, They Will Come.  Another piece of invaluable advice that is repeated all over the blogosphere (I finally got to use that word non-ironically!) is that you have to keep writing.  Writing and blogging are just habits.  How do you form a habit?  Well, I’ve heard it takes 30 days to form a habit and that goes for creating new content for your blog on a regular basis.  My goal is about 2-3 good posts a week.  It’s been a month so far for the American Debt Project and it has become a part of my daily activities to work at least 30 minutes a day on my blog.  The other thing about blogs is that the traffic builds up very slowly at first, but you will start to see results after one year of posting regularly.  So according to the blogosphere (twice!), I should be rolling in C-notes by June 2012.  No?  Ok, well maybe not rolling in them, but hopefully I will be generating at least one C-note a month just from advertising on my site.  The more exciting part will be having readers and comments to respond to.  Oh how I look forward to my first comment!

Filed Under: Get Out of Debt, Self-Development

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