Structure

16 Quotes That Prove A Structured Life Is A Free One

Discipline is the key to emotional freedom. Simplicity isn't just a nice idea. It is only through structure that we can really be free.
Brianna Wiest
July 18, 2016
“A degree of attachment occurs whenever you stumble upon something you like. It could be something you find visually appealing, pleases you, or aligns with your perceived goals and purpose in life. Over time, people begin to associate their sense of purpose with the attachments that provide them with that purpose. In the realm of things, they hoard and stockpile money and goods, believing that these things contribute to their self-worth. In the realm of ideas, they become extremists and ideologues, refusing to entertain new ideas. In the realm of relationships, they become codependent, sexually obsessive or abusive, fearful of losing what they believe to be filling an internal void. With a heightened belief in the importance of external things and ideas comes a fear of losing them. This fear is the bad part of attachment.”
— Charlie Ambler, Healthy Detachment
“Emptiness which is conceptually liable to be mistaken for sheer nothingness is in fact the reservoir of infinite possibilities.”
— D.T. Suzuki, An Introduction to Zen Buddhism
“The point of simple living, for me has got to be: A soft place to land. A wide margin of error. Room to breathe. Lots of places to find baseline happiness in each and every day.”
— Leo Babauta, The Effortless Life
Tagged: Structure
“William: "I'm sure we can all pull together, sir."
Vetinari: "Oh, I do hope not. Pulling together is the aim of despotism and tyranny. Free men pull in all kinds of directions.”
— Terry Pratchett, The Color of Magic (Discworld)
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“To be in hell is to drift; to be in heaven is to steer.”
— George Bernard Shaw, Pygmalion
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“An idea can only become a reality once it is broken down into organized, actionable elements.”
— Scott Belsky, Making Ideas Happen: Overcoming the Obstacles Between Vision and Reality
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“Organisms organize. In everyday experience lies the reason sober physicists across two centuries kept this cartoon fantasy alive. We sort the mail, build sand castles, solve jigsaw puzzles, separate wheat from chaff, rearrange chess pieces, collect stamps, alphabetize books, create symmetry, compose sonnets and sonatas, and put our rooms in order, and all this we do requires no great energy, as long as we can apply intelligence. Not only do living things lessen the disorder in their environments; they are in themselves, their skeletons and their flesh, vesicles and membranes, shells and carapaces, leaves and blossoms, circulatory systems and metabolic pathways – miracles of pattern and structure. It sometimes seems as if curbing entropy is our quixotic purpose in the universe.”
— James Gleick, The Information: A History, A Theory, A Flood
Tagged: Structure
“There seems to be a sense of balance or equilibrium that nature attempts to achieve with the usage of cycles, leading us to the concept of self-organization and spontaneous order.”
— Kat Lahr, Anatomy Of Illumination(Thought Notebook Journal) (Volume 5)
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“Man does not know most of the rules on which he acts; and even what we call his intelligence is largely a system of rules which operate on him but which he does not know.”
— Friedrich Hayek, Monetary Theory and the Trade Cycle
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“The Balinese don't wait and see 'how things go.' That would be terrifying. They organize how things go, in order to keep things from falling apart.”
— Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia
“It's not what you do but what you don't do - the things you postpone, not the things you accomplish - that make you tired.”
— Donna Otto, Finding Your Purpose as a Mom: How to Build Your Home on Holy Ground
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“Clutter is the physical manifestation of unmade decisions fueled by procrastination.”
— Christina Scalise, Interior Design Illustrated: Marker and Watercolor Techniques (International Critical Commentary)
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“Like creating a masterpiece, quitting is an art: you have to decide what to keep within the frame and what to keep out.”
— Richie Norton, The Power of Starting Something Stupid
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“Understand: your mind is weaker than your emotions. But you become aware of this weakness only in moments of adversity,precisely the time when you need strength. What best equips you to cope with the heat of battle is neither more knowledge nor more intellect. What makes your mind stronger, and more able to control your emotions, is internal discipline and toughness. No one can teach you this skill; you cannot learn it by reading about it. Like any discipline, it can come only through practice, experience, even a little suffering. The first step in building up presence of mind is to see the need for it, to want it badly enough to be willing to work for it.”
— Robert Greene, The 33 Strategies of War (Joost Elffers Books)
“Life is not found in atoms or molecules or genes, but in the organization of them. Not in symbiosis, but in synthesis.”
— Edwin Grant Conklin, Heredity and environment in the development of men
Tagged: Structure
“Every great building once begun as a building plan. That means, sitting in that building plan on the table is a mighty structure not yet seen. It is the same with dreams.”
— Israelmore Ayivor, Shaping the dream!: 101 Simplified Principles for making your dreams come true!
Tagged: Structure