My goal is this: always to put myself in the place in which I am best able to serve, wherever my gifts and qualities find the best soil to grow, the widest field of action. There is no other goal.
Interpretation
Strive to find the environment where your abilities can flourish in the service of others.
This quote by Hermann Hesse emphasizes the importance of finding the right environment that allows one’s talents and qualities to thrive. It suggests that true fulfillment comes from serving others in a capacity that aligns with one's strengths, highlighting a commitment to both personal growth and altruism as the ultimate goal in life.
In practice
In a motivational speech to inspire your team to identify their strengths.
I shall no longer be instructed by the Yoga Veda or the Aharva Veda, or the ascetics, or any other doctrine whatsoever. I shall learn from myself, be a pupil of myself; I shall get to know myself, the mystery of Siddhartha." He looked around as if he were seeing the world for the first time.
That is where my dearest and brightest dreams have ranged — to hear for the duration of a heartbeat the universe and the totality of life in its mysterious, innate harmony.
I, also, would like to look and smile, sit and walk like that, so free, so worthy, so restrained, so candid, so childlike and mysterious. A man only looks and walks like that when he has conquered his Self. I also will conquer my Self.
You're quite right there," he said. "I have practiced abstinence myself for years, and had my time of fasting, too, but now I find myself once more beneath the sign of Aquarius, a dark and humid constellation.
I call that man awake who, with conscious knowledge and understanding, can perceive the deep unreasoning powers in his soul, his whole innermost strength, desire and weakness, and knows how to reckon with himself.
Despair is the result of each earnest attempt to go through life with virtue, justice and understanding, and to fulfill their requirements. Children live on one side of despair, the awakened on the other side.
I divide the world into three Classes - The few who make things happen, the many who watch things happen, the overwhelming majority who have no notion of what happens.
Give up, renounce the world. Now we are like dogs strayed into a kitchen and eating a piece of meat, looking round in fear lest at any moment some one may come and drive them out. Instead of that, be a king and know you own the world. This never comes until you give it up and it ceases to bind. Give up mentally, if you do not physically. Give up from the heart of your hearts
I do not think it worth while to wait for enjoyment until there is some real opportunity for it.
Stairway to Wisdom”) David Brooks detailed the needed ingredients to gaining a deep understanding of a social problem, beginning with the data and moving on to first-hand accounts. The highest rung on his stairway, though, went beyond those: “Empathy opens you up to absorb the good and the bad. Love impels you not just to observe but to seek union—to think as another thinks and feel as another feels.
I always had this idea that you should never give up a happy middle in the hopes of a happy ending, because there is no such thing as a happy ending. Do you know what I mean? There is so much to lose.
Good advice is rarer than rubies.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.