The chain of destiny

It is a mistake to look too far ahead. Only one link of the chain of destiny can be handled at a time.

~ Winston Churchill

The fox has many tricks. The hedgehog has but one. But that is the best of all.

~ Erasmus

How simple it is to see that we can only be happy now, and that there will never be a time when it is not now. 

~ Gerald Jampolsky

Your treasure house is in yourself. It contains all you’ll ever need. 

~ Hui Hai

The problem is never how to get new, innovative thoughts into your mind, but how to get old ones out. Every mind is a room packed with archaic furniture. You must get the old furniture of what you know, think, and believe out before anything new can get in. Make an empty space in any corner of your mind, and creativity will instantly fill it.

~ Dee Hock

Substance is enduring, form is ephemeral. Failure to distinguish clearly between the two is ruinous. Success follows those adept at preserving the substance of the past by clothing it in the forms of the future. Preserve substance; modify form; know the difference. The closest thing to a law of nature in business is that form has an affinity for expense, while substance has an affinity for income.

~ Dee Hock

Happiness is as a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but which if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.

~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.

~ John Lennon

He made me play a song for him once with one finger. I was playing it with a lot of flash, and he said, “Wait a minute. I just want to hear the song.” I’d taper it out and cool it more and more, but finally he grabbed one finger and said, “Play me the song with this finger!” Now, that’s hard to do. You can play Moon River with one finger, no problem. But try and play some funk tune, with no melody and no real content, with one finger. You can’t do it.

~ David Foster, relating a conversation with Quincy Jones