The greatest pride, or the greatest despondency, is the greatest ignorance of one's self.
Baruch SpinozaRead
Ambition is the immoderate desire for honor.
Interpretation
Ambition can drive individuals to seek honor and recognition excessively.
This quote by Baruch Spinoza suggests that ambition, when taken to extremes, manifests as an excessive desire for honor and recognition from others. It reflects the dual nature of ambition; while it can lead to great achievements and personal growth, it can also result in a relentless pursuit of external validation that may ultimately be unsatisfying or destructive.
In practice
Use this quote when discussing the pitfalls of excessive ambition in a leadership seminar.
The greatest pride, or the greatest despondency, is the greatest ignorance of one's self.
A man is as much affected pleasurably or painfully by the image of a thing past or future as by the image of a thing present.
He who seeks to regulate everything by law is more likely to arouse vices than to reform them. It is best to grant what cannot be abolished, even though it be in itself harmful. How many evils spring from luxury, envy, avarice, drunkenness and the like, yet these are tolerated because they cannot be prevented by legal enactments.
No one doubts but that we imagine time from the very fact that we imagine other bodies to be moved slower or faster or equally fast. We are accustomed to determine duration by the aid of some measure of motion.
Fear cannot be without hope nor hope without fear. [They are the two sides of a coin, so learning how to manage fear through learning, understanding, rationality, controlled imagination, preparation, mental focus (including distraction) and a gratitude attitude is very helpful.]
He who wishes to revenge injuries by reciprocal hatred will live in misery. But he who endeavors to drive away hatred by means of love, fights with pleasure and confidence; he resists equally one or many men, and scarcely needs at all the help of fortune. Those whom he conquers yield joyfully
Great lives never go out; they go on.
To see a thing clearly in the mind makes it begin to take form.
I don't believe there is such a thing as a 'born' soccer player. Perhaps you are born with certain skills and talents, but quite frankly it seems impossible to me that one is actually born to be an ace soccer player
Wealth is only a benefit of the game of money. If you win, the money will be there.
When you're given a platform, and you're allowed to perform, and someone's there to heighten you as opposed to dampen you, that's a nice feeling.
If you don't plan to dive in and dedicate all of your time to your startup, you probably shouldn't be looking for funding. It's hard enough asking for money when you believe in an idea; asking for money to fund something you're iffy about is ten times more strenuous.
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