In an age of acceleration, nothing can be more exhilarating than going slow.
Interpretation
In a fast-paced world, taking the time to slow down can be a refreshing and liberating experience.
Pico Iyer's quote highlights the paradox of our modern life, where speed and constant motion are often celebrated. In contrast, he suggests that embracing a slower pace can lead to deeper appreciation, clarity, and joy, allowing individuals to step back from the rush and truly engage with their experiences and surroundings.
In practice
During a motivational speech about mindfulness and mental health.
Quitting, for me, means not giving up, but moving on; changing direction not because something doesn’t agree with you, but because you don’t agree with something. It’s not a complaint, in other words, but a positive choice, and not a stop in one’s journey, but a step in a better direction. Quitting-whether a job or a habit-means taking a turn so as to be sure you’re still moving in the direction of your dreams.
I think one reason, obviously, that I spend so much time in one place is that I've been lucky enough to travel a lot, and now there are other different, invisible trains that are more interesting to me.
I've never meditated in my life. I don't practice yoga nor any religion. I'm a tourist on the realm of stillness.
We travel to open our hearts and eyes and learn more about the world than our newspapers will accommodate.
I'm no Buddhist monk, and I can't say I'm in love with renunciation in itself, or traveling an hour or more to print out an article I've written, or missing out on the N.B.A. Finals. But at some point, I decided that, for me at least, happiness arose out of all I didn't want or need, not all I did.
The one thing perhaps that technology hasn't always given us is a sense of how to make the wisest use of technology.
Words without thoughts never to heaven go.
There will always be people in your life who treat you wrong. Be sure to thank them for making you strong.
I am sure that in estimating every man's value either in private or public life, a pure integrity is the quality we take first into calculation, and that learning and talents are only the second.
The fool sees naught but folly; and the madman only madness. Yesterday I asked a foolish man to count the fools among us. He laughed and said, "This is too hard a thing to do, and it will take too long. Were it not better to count only the wise?"
To inquisitive minds like yours and mine the reflection that the quantity of human knowledge bears no proportion to the quantity of human ignorance must be in one view rather pleasing, viz., that though we are to live forever we may be continually amused and delighted with learning something new.
Long is the night to him who is awake; long is a mile to him who is tired; long is life to the foolish who do not know the true law.
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