Life is like topography, Hobbes. There are summits of happiness and success, flat stretches of boring routine and valleys of frustration and failure.
Bill WattersonRead
Sometimes when I'm talking, my words can't keep up with my thoughts. I wonder why we think faster than we speak. Probably so we can think twice.
Interpretation
We often have more thoughts than words, suggesting a reflective pause before speaking.
This quote by Bill Watterson reflects on the nature of communication, illustrating the common experience of thinking more quickly than we can articulate our thoughts. It suggests that this discrepancy allows us the opportunity to reconsider our words and express ourselves more thoughtfully, emphasizing the value of reflection in communication.
In practice
In a public speaking event, to emphasize the importance of pausing before responding.
Life is like topography, Hobbes. There are summits of happiness and success, flat stretches of boring routine and valleys of frustration and failure.
The secret to enjoying your job is to have a hobby that's even worse
Shutting off the thought process is not rejuvenating; the mind is like a car battery - it recharges by running.
Mothers are the necessity of invention.
Dad: Honey, have you seen my glasses? I can"t find them. Mom: I haven't seen them. Calvin: (with glasses, to Dad) Calvin, go do something you hate! Being miserable builds character!
The problem with the future is that it keeps turning into the present.
As a surgeon you have to have a controlled arrogance. If it's uncontrolled, you kill people, but you have to be pretty arrogant to saw through a person's chest, take out their heart and believe you can fix it. Then, when you succeed and the patient survives, you pray, because it's only by the grace of God that you get there.
Itβs time to stop being vague. If you wish to be an extraordinary person, if you wish to be wise, then you should explicitly identify the kind of person you aspire to become.
All your scholarship, all your study of Shakespeare and Wordsworth would be in vain, if at the same time you do not build your character, and attain mastery over your thoughts and actions.
Deep in the soul, below pain, below all the distraction of life, is a silence vast and grand - an infinite ocean of calm, which nothing can disturb; Nature's own exceeding peace, which "passes understanding". That which we seek with passionate longing, here and there, upward and outward; we find at last within ourselves.
Each day look into your conscience and amend your faults; if you fail in this duty you will be untrue to the Knowledge and Reason that are within you. Keep a watchful eye over yourself as if you were your own enemy; for you cannot learn to govern yourself, unless you first learn to govern your own passions and obey the dictates of your conscience.
A golden mind stoops not to shows of dross.
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