If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.
Neil PeartRead
Half the world hates What half the world does every day Half the world waits While half gets on with it anyway
Interpretation
This quote reflects on the divided perspectives of people regarding action and inaction in life.
Neil Peart's quote highlights the contrasting attitudes of people towards effort and engagement in life. It suggests that while some individuals may be critical or resentful of the actions that others take, a significant portion of the world continues to pursue their goals regardless of external opinions or challenges. It emphasizes the importance of perseverance and the reality that not everyone will share the same viewpoint or approach to life.
In practice
This quote can be shared in a motivational speech to inspire people to take action despite critics.
If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.
The real test of a musician is live performance. It's one thing to spend a long time learning how to play well in the studio, but to do it in front of people is what keeps me coming back to touring.
Performing live in front of an audience is such a matter of will - all of those things you can do just fine in your basement, suddenly you have to do them in front of hundreds or thousands of people, and it becomes a different matter entirely.
It seems to me that's the only way you can have a truly creative aggregate of people is if they're all contributing in different ways.
What I've learned over the years is that the craft of songwriting is trying to take the personal and make it universal - or in the case of telling a story, taking the universal and making it personal.
I've heard the stories. Like, Eric Clapton said he wanted to burn his guitar when he heard Jimi Hendrix play. I never understood that because, when I went and saw a great drummer or heard one, all I wanted to do was practice.
...we shall incur no slight injury, but rather great danger, if we rashly yield ourselves to the inclinations of men who aim at exciting strife and tumults, so as to draw us away from what is good? Let us cleave, therefore, to those who cultivate peace with godliness?
We may, perhaps, imagine that the creation was finished long ago. But that would be quite wrong. It continues still more magnificently, and at the highest levels of the world.
Our lack of forgiveness makes us hate, and our lack of compassion makes us hard-hearted. Pride in our hearts makes us resentful and keeps our memory in a constant whirlwind of passion and self-pity.
We don't need legitimacy. We exist. Therefore we are legitimate.
Custom will reconcile people to any atrocity, and fashion will drive them to acquire any custom.
Not he is great who can alter matter, but he who can alter my state of mind.
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