We all want to fall in love. Why? Because that experience makes us feel completely alive. Where every sense is heightened, every emotion is magnified, our everyday reality is shattered and we are flying into the heavens. It may only last a moment, an hour, an afternoon. But that doesn’t diminish its value. Because we are left with memories that we treasure for the rest of our lives.
—Unknown
Do the thing you fear to do and keep on doing it…that is the quickest and surest way ever yet discovered to conquer fear.
—Dale Carnegie (1888–1955) American Self-Help Author
We sleep, but the loom of life never stops and the pattern which was weaving when the sun went down is weaving when it comes up to-morrow.
—Henry Ward Beecher (1813–87) American Clergyman, Writer
There is a difference between interest and commitment. When you’re interested in something, you do it only when it’s convenient. When you’re committed to something, you accept no excuses, only results.
—Ken Blanchard (b.1939) American Author, Management Consultant
The basis on which good repute in any highly organized industrial community ultimately rests is pecuniary strength; and the means of showing pecuniary strength, and so of gaining or retaining a good name, are leisure and a conspicuous consumption of goods
—Thorstein Veblen (1857–1929) American Economist, Social Critic
It should be noted that children’s games are not merely games. One should regard them as their most serious activities.
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–92) French Essayist
After climbing a great hill, one finds that there are many more hills to climb. I have taken a moment here to rest, to steal a view of the glorious vista that surrounds me, to look back on the distance I have come. But I can only rest for a moment, for with freedom comes responsibilities, and I dare not linger, for my long walk has not yet ended.
—Nelson Mandela (1918–2013) South African Political leader
Rest is a fine medicine. Let your stomachs rest, ye dyspeptics; let your brain rest, you wearied and worried men of business; let your limbs rest, ye children of toil.
—Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish Historian, Essayist
Sleep is the golden chain that ties health and our bodies together.
—Thomas Dekker
So you can see that if you direct that force at several objectives, it becomes divided, and each objective receives a fairly weak stimulus, which results in a slow reaction, or no reaction at all. Do you have a great, ultimate goal to reach that requires attaining lesser objectives along the way? Well then, let the many lie inactive and direct your force at the nearest or first; once you accomplish that, take up the next and so on.
—Roger McDonald (b.1941) Australian Novelist, Poet, Screenwriter, Writer
If one sheep puts its head through the gap the rest will follow.
—Irish Proverb
And this activity alone would seem to be loved for its own sake; for nothing arises from it apart from the contemplating, while from practical activities we gain more or less apart from the action. And happiness is thought to depend on leisure; for we are busy that we may have leisure, and make war that we may live in peace
—Aristotle (384BCE–322BCE) Ancient Greek Philosopher, Scholar
To be at ease is better than to be at business. Nothing really belongs to us but time, which even he has who has nothing else.
—Baltasar Gracian (1601–58) Spanish Scholar, Prose Writer
Each of us wrestles with the dark giant in our own way.
—Connie Zweig (b.1949) American Minister, Columnist, Psychotherapist
Spare minutes are the Gold-dust of time; the portions of life most fruitful in good and evil; the gaps through which temptations enter.
—Unknown
Cherish your visions. Cherish your ideals. Cherish the music that stirs in your heart, the beauty that forms in your mind, the loveliness that drapes your purest thoughts, for out of them will grow all delightful conditions, all heavenly environment; of these, if you but remain true to them, your world will at last be built.
—James Allen (1864–1912) British Philosophical Writer
What is without periods of rest will not endure.
—Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso) (c.43 BCE–c.18 CE) Roman Poet
Just imagine you’re four years old, and someone makes the following proposal: If you’ll wait until after he runs an errand, you can have two marshmallows for a treat. If you can’t wait until then, you can have only one—but you can have it right now. It is a challenge sure to try the soul of any four-year-old, a microcosm of the eternal battle between impulse and restraint, id and ego, desire and self-control, gratification and delay… There is perhaps no psychological skill more fundamental than resisting impulse. It is the root of all emotional self-control, since all emotions, by their very nature, led to one or another impulse to act.
—Daniel Goleman (b.1946) American Psychologist, Author, Science Journalist
To make knowledge productive, we will have to learn to see both forest and tree. We will have to learn to connect.
—Peter Drucker (1909–2005) Austrian-born Management Consultant
Rest is not quitting the busy career; rest is the fitting of self to its sphere.
—John Sullivan Dwight
Like water which can clearly mirror the sky and the trees only so long as its surface is undisturbed, the mind can only reflect the true image of the Self when it is tranquil and wholly relaxed.
—Indra Devi (1899–2002) Russian-American Yoga Teacher
Your hair may be brushed, but your mind’s untidy. You’ve had about seven hours of sleep since Friday. No wonder you feel that lost sensation. You’re sunk from a riot of relaxation.
—Ogden Nash (1902–71) American Writer of Sophisticated Light Verse
I rest not from my great task!
To open the Eternal Worlds,
to open the immortal Eyes of Man
Inwards into the Worlds of Thought;
Into eternity, ever expanding
In the Bosom of God,
The Human Imagination
—William Blake (1757–1827) English Poet, Painter, Printmaker
The commitments we make to ourselves and to others, and our integrity to those commitments, is the essence and clearest manifestation of our proactivity.
—Stephen Covey (1932–2012) American Self-help Author
Always do right. This will gratify some people, and astonish the rest.
—Mark Twain (1835–1910) American Humorist
Man needs a day of rest from the cares, toils, and trials of the six days of work in the material realm. He needs to reflect, meditate, contemplate, and to turn his eyes inward, as it were, rather than outwards.
—Anonymous
Alternate rest and labor long endure.
—Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso) (c.43 BCE–c.18 CE) Roman Poet
No one needs a vacation more than the person who just had one.
—Unknown
Every now and then go away, have a little relaxation, for when you come back to your work your judgment will be surer. Go some distance away because then the work appears smaller and more of it can be taken in at a glance and a lack of harmony and proportion is more readily seen.
—Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Polymath, Painter, Sculptor, Inventor, Architect
Rest breeds rust.
—German Proverb
I promise to keep on living as though I expected to live forever. Nobody grows old by merely living a number of years. People grow old only by deserting their ideals. Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up interest wrinkles the soul.
—Douglas MacArthur (1880–1964) American Military Leader
He does not seem to me to be a free man who does not sometimes do nothing.
—Cicero (106BCE–43BCE) Roman Philosopher, Orator, Politician, Lawyer
The art of resting the mind and the power of dismissing from it all care and worry is probably one of the secrets of energy in our great men.
—James Arthur Hadfield (1882–1967) British Psychoanalysts
If you are insecure, guess what? The rest of the world is, too. Do not overestimate the competition and underestimate yourself. You are better than you think.
—Tim Ferriss (b.1977) American Self-help Author
The affairs of life embrace a multitude of interests, and he who reasons in any one of them, without consulting the rest, is a visionary unsuited to control the business of the world.
—James Fenimore Cooper (1789–1851) American Novelist
Here’s an equation I want you to remember for the rest of your life: CZ = WZ. It means your “comfort zone” equals your “wealth zone”. By expanding your comfort zone, you will expand the size of your income and wealth zone.
—T. Harv Eker (b.1954) American Motivational Speaker, Lecturer, Author
They talk of the dignity of work. The dignity is in leisure.
—Herman Melville (1819–91) American Novelist, Short Story Writer, Essayist, Poet
Too much rest itself becomes a pain.
—Homer (751–651 BCE) Ancient Greek Poet
Money and time are the heaviest burdens of life, and the unhappiest of all mortals are those who have more of either than they know how to use.
—Samuel Johnson (1709–84) British Essayist
In our play we reveal what kind of people we are.
—Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso) (c.43 BCE–c.18 CE) Roman Poet
He that can take rest is greater than he that can take cities.
—Benjamin Franklin (1706–90) American Political Leader, Inventor, Diplomat
Rest unto our souls!—’tis all we want—the end of all our wishes and pur suits: we seek for it in titles, in riches and pleasures—climb up after it by am bition,—come down again and stoop for it by avarice,—try all extremes; nor is it till after many miserable experiments, that we are convinced, at last, we have been seeking everywhere for it but where there is a prospect of finding it; and that is, within ourselves, in a meek and lowly disposition of heart.
—Laurence Sterne (1713–68) Irish Anglican Novelist, Clergyman
In every forest, on every farm, in every orchard on earth, it’s what’s under the ground that creates what’s above the ground. That’s why placing your attention on the fruits that you have already grown is futile. You cannot change the fruits that are already hanging on the tree. You can, however, change tomorrow’s fruits. But to do so, you will have to dig below the ground and strengthen the roots.
—T. Harv Eker (b.1954) American Motivational Speaker, Lecturer, Author
The end of labor is to gain leisure.
—Aristotle (384BCE–322BCE) Ancient Greek Philosopher, Scholar
Compound interest is the eighth natural wonder of the world and the most powerful thing I have ever encountered.
—Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born Physicist
The idea that leisure is of value in itself is only conditionally true. The average man simply spends his leisure as a dog spends it. His recreations are all puerile, and the time supposed to benefit him really only stupefies him.
—H. L. Mencken (1880–1956) American Journalist, Literary Critic
Put off thy cares with thy clothes; so shall thy rest strengthen thy labor; and and so shall thy labor sweeten thy rest.
—Francis Quarles (1592–1644) English Religious Poet
Why do they always teach us that it’s easy and evil to do what we want and that we need discipline to restrain ourselves? It’s the hardest thing in the world—to do what we want. And it takes the greatest kind of courage. I mean, what we really want.
—Ayn Rand (1905–82) Russian-born American Novelist, Philosopher
When a habit begins to cost money, it’s called a hobby.
—Yiddish Proverb
Today we come across an individual who behaves like an automaton, who does not know or understand himself, and the only person that he knows is the person that he is supposed to be, whose meaningless chatter has replaced communicative speech, whose synthetic smile has replaced genuine laughter, and whose sense of dull despair has taken the place of genuine pain. Two statements may be said concerning this individual. One is that he suffers from defects of spontaneity and individuality which may seem to be incurable. At the same time it may be said of him he does not differ essentially from the millions of the rest of us who walk upon this earth.
—Erich Fromm (1900–80) German-American Psychoanalyst, Social Philosopher