Our business in life is not to succeed, but to continue to fail in good spirits.
Robert Louis StevensonRead
Perpetual devotion to what a man calls his business is only to be sustained by perpetual neglect of many other things.
Interpretation
Focusing solely on one's work can lead to the neglect of important aspects of life.
Robert Louis Stevenson's quote highlights the idea that an intense commitment to one's job or business often comes at the cost of neglecting other vital areas of life, such as relationships, health, and personal growth. It serves as a reminder to strive for balance, as an obsession with work can overshadow the importance of holistic well-being.
In practice
During a keynote speech about work-life balance in the corporate world.
Our business in life is not to succeed, but to continue to fail in good spirits.
Like a bird singing in the rain, let grateful memories survive in time of sorrow.
That man is a success who has lived well, laughed often and loved much.
His past was fairly blameless; few men could read the rolls of their life with less apprehension; yet he was humbled to the dust by the many ill things he had done, and raised up again into sober and fearful gratitude by the many he had come so near to doing, yet avoided.
The habit of being happy enables one to be freed, or largely freed, from the domination of outward conditions.
It is the history of our kindnesses that alone make this world tolerable. If it were not for that, for the effect of kind words, kind looks, kind letters . . . I should be inclined to think our life a practical jest in the worst possible spirit.
Let the man who would hear God speak, read Holy Scriptures.
To be wise is to be eternally curious.
I believe that we have been doing this not primarily to achieve riches or even honour, but rather because we were interested in the work, enjoyed doing it and felt very strongly that it was worthwhile.
You can't afford to hop around and act like a kid when you have to get back on defense and worry about the other parts of the game. But at the end, when the buzzer sounds, you have the luxury of hopping around and looking foolish for a while.
The most deadly disease truly is the failure of the heart.
Pity is one of the noblest emotions available to human beings; self-pity is possibly the most ignoble . . . . [It] is an incapacity, a crippling emotional disease that severely distorts our perception of reality . . . a narcotic that leaves its addicts wasted and derelict.
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