Ten Quotes on Coincidences

A coincidence is "a sequence of events that although accidental seems to have been planned or arranged," according to the FreeDictionary. I've had so many in my life that I have lost count of them. Since I'm not a habitual note-taker or a diary-keeper, it will take me really serious effort to recall all those.

But I am suddenly conscious again about coincidences precisely because of several recent developments in my life that are so uncanny in terms of context, timing and significance, relative to what I am planning for my next career shift. I have not blogged here for two weeks now precisely because I've been busy with activities that will lead to my next "incarnation," this time as an entrepreneur. Join me as I explore further the nature of COINCIDENCES, as other people viewed or experienced it:

In the magical universe there are no coincidences and there are no accidents. Nothing happens unless someone wills it to happen. -William S. Burroughs

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A coincidence is a small miracle in which God chooses to remain anonymous. -Unknown

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Coincidence is the word we use when we can't see the levers and pulleys. -Emma Bull

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Coincidences are spiritual puns. -G.K. Chesterton

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There are no mistakes, no coincidences. All events are blessings given to us to learn from. -Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

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If you do something once, people will call it an accident. If you do it twice, they call it a coincidence. But do it a third time and you've just proven a natural law. -Grace Murray Hopper

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If there were no such thing as coincidence, there would be no such word. -Heron Carvic

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Coincidence, if traced far enough back, becomes inevitable. -Hineu

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Coincidence is God's way of remaining anonymous. -Albert Einstein

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Consciousness itself is an infinite regress. This explains coincidences. -Robert Anton Wilson

(Photo credit: www.sxc.hu)

Ten Quotes on Life

I was reviewing my posts since I started this blog a year ago and discovered to my surprise that, while I have sprinkled my previous posts with quotes about life, here and there, I have yet to devote a post dedicated to LIFE--the canvas on which I paint my thoughts in my other niche blog. So here goes:

Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and have a new ending. -Maria Robinson

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Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile. -Albert Einstein

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Only when we are no longer afraid do we begin to live. -Dorothy Thompson

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The quality, not the longevity, of one's life is what is important. -Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

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One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star. -Friedrich Nietzsche

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The question is not whether we will die, but how we will live. -Joan Borysenko

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I don't want to get to the end of my life and find that I lived just the length of it. I want to have lived the width of it as well. -Diane Ackerman

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Why stay we on the earth except to grow? -Robert Browning

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Don't go through life, grow through life. -Eric Butterworth

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To live is so startling it leaves little time for anything else. -Emily Dickinson

(Photo credit: www.sxc.hu)

Ten Quotes on Vision and Ambition

Vision and ambition. Two words with terminal sounds that rhyme nicely. The former "conceives" while the latter "achieves"; action words which, again, have a nice ring to them but therein ends their resonance (at least to me). The first one is decidedly "yang"--positive, upward-seeking. As for the other, well, ambition has an uplifting nature but it has an ugly side that is "yin"--consuming, ironically downward-seeking and, therefore, negative.

My recent posts in two of my other blogs contain elements of both. My brief post on Davos, where I traced the origin of what is now called the "World Economic Forum," (the 38th annual conference being attended by 27 heads of state, among others, is ongoing) is meant as a tribute to a single individual's strategic vision. On the other hand, my post on the shocking $7 billion loss announced recently by Societe Generale (SocGen) is meant as a slap on the wrist of a young rouge trader driven by overweening ambition to get ahead fast in the competitive world of banking.

The following quotes hopefully capture in elegant prose what my own thoughts are about vision and ambition:

On Vision

To accomplish great things we must first dream, then visualize, then plan... believe... act! -Alfred A. Montapert

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Throughout the centuries there were men who took first steps, down new roads, armed with nothing but their own vision. -Ayn Rand

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The whole world steps aside for the man who knows where he is going. -Anonymous

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Vision is the art of seeing the invisible. -Jonathan Swift

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Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart. Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens. -Carl Jung

On Ambition

No one does anything from a single motive. -Samuel Taylor Coleridge

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Ambition can creep as well as soar. -Edmund Burke

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When ability exceeds ambition, or ambition exceeds ability, the likelihood of success is limited. -Ralph Half

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In order to be profoundly dishonest, a person must have one of two qualities: either he is unscrupulously ambitious, or he is unswervingly egocentric. -Maya Angelou

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Man's many desires are like the small metal coins he carries about in his pocket. The more he has the more they weigh him down. -Bhagawan Sri Sathya Sai Baba

(Photo credits: Stockxpert.com)

Ten Quotes on Paradoxes

A paradox is a self-contradictory statement. I blogged today about a paradox that I have observed in the present subprime turmoil which has rocked the U.S. economy and could possibly affect the rest of the world if it really worsens. It is by no means the only paradox I have seen in my lifetime. There are many, believe me. Life is full of paradoxes, if you'd only care to notice. Let me share with you what others have said about paradoxes:

The truth often sounds paradoxical. -Lao Tzu

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Two paradoxes are better than one; they may even suggest a solution. -Edward Teller

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Play not with paradoxes. That caustic which you handle in order to scorch others may happen to sear your own fingers and make them dead to the quality of things. -George Eliot

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The paradox is really the pathos of intellectual life and just as only great souls are exposed to passions it is only the great thinker who is exposed to what I call paradoxes, which are nothing else than grandiose thoughts in embryo. -Soren Kierkegaard

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Across planes of consciousness, we have to live with the paradox that opposite things can be simultaneously true. -Ram Dass

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The paradoxes of today are the prejudices of tomorrow, since the most benighted and the most deplorable prejudices have had their moment of novelty when fashion lent them its fragile grace. -Marcel Proust

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There is this paradox in pride - it makes some men ridiculous, but prevents others from becoming so. -Charles Colton

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Perhaps the greatest paradox of all is that there are paradoxes in mathematics. -Edward Kasner

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The best therapy for emotional blocks to math is the realization that the human race took centuries or millennia to see through the mist of difficulties and paradoxes which instructors now invite us to solve in a few minutes. -Lancelot Hogben

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Abandon the urge to simplify everything, to look for formulas and easy answers, and to begin to think multidimensionally, to glory in the mystery and paradoxes of life, not to be dismayed by the multitude of causes and consequences that are inherent in each experience -- to appreciate the fact that life is complex. -M. Scott Peck

(Photo credits: www.stockxpert.com)

Ten Quotes on Perseverance and Persistence

I have accepted long ago that life's problems, sufferings and pain are thrown our way for a purpose. They build character and make us better persons in the end; they are not meant to punish us or defeat us. And so it was with this spirit that I faced a most unusual challenge last week.

Like I wrote in my other blog, I never imagined that I would one day need to know how to code a blog template when I first decided to go blogging one year ago. I thought blogging was mere writing and that was it.

Anyway, a peculiar problem with one of the ads displayed on my other blog forced me to learn the XML language in a jiffy, from scratch! To make the long story short, I succeeded where I initially doubted if I could hack it. Only a stubborn failure-is-not-an-option attitude saved the day for me. Three cheers for perseverance and persistence!

Problems are not stop signs, they are guidelines. -Robert Schuller

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With ordinary talent and extraordinary perseverance, all things are attainable. -Thomas Foxwell Buxton

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Perseverance is the hard work you do after you get tired of doing the hard work you already did. -Newt Gingrich

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The difference between perseverance and obstinacy is that one comes from a strong will, and the other from a strong won't. -Henry Ward Beecher

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When you come to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on. -Franklin D. Roosevelt

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The road to success is dotted with many tempting parking places. -Author Unknown

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Don't be afraid to give your best to what seemingly are small jobs. Every time you conquer one it makes you that much stronger. If you do the little jobs well, the big ones will tend to take care of themselves. -Dale Carnegie

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Fall seven times, stand up eight. -Japanese Proverb

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The great majority of men are bundles of beginnings. -Ralph Waldo Emerson

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It's not that I'm so smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer. -Albert Einstein

Here's wishing you a Happy and Prosperous New Year!

(Thanks to www.stockxpert.com for the use of the royalty-free photo shown above)

Ten Quotes on Success

I received a pat on the back today after a successful presentation, which brought the project I've been working on since August this year just one step shy from final approval. I hope to get it tomorrow with one more presentation.

Musing on how things seem easier now to achieve compared to how it was in my younger years, I cannot help but ruminate that my success today didn't really come easy. I selected these ten quotes on success because each one of these speak a great truth in my career life.

Did success come easy for you or are you like me? See if you can identify with these quotes:

"Actually, I'm an overnight success. But it took twenty years." -Monty Hall

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"Success is the ability to go from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm." -Sir Winston Churchill

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"I don't measure a man's success by how high he climbs but how high he bounces when he hits bottom." -General George S. Patton

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"Eighty percent of success is showing up." -Woody Allen

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"You will find the key to success under the alarm clock." -Benjamin Franklin

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"It is wise to keep in mind that neither success nor failure is ever final." -Roger Babson

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"Real success finding your lifework in the work that you love." -David McCullough

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"Men are born to succeed, not fail." -Henry David Thoreau

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"Success usually comes to those who are too busy looking for it." -Henry David Thoreau

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"Aim for success, not perfection. Never give up your right to be wrong, because then you will lose the ability to learn new things and move forward with your life." -Dr. David M. Burns

One-liner Arabian Proverbs

I love one-liner quotes because of their punch line character. Interestingly, proverbs satisfy that criteria. Most proverbs are short sayings. But don’t sneer at that length (actually, the lack of it), for proverbs express a lot of wisdom and truth very concisely.

Being a Roman Catholic, my introduction to proverbs was , of course, through the Bible. But I was also impressed with the depth and breadth of Arabic proverbs which I am featuring here today. I stumbled upon Arabic proverbs when I was looking for a suitable quote for a post in my other blog. From then on, I got hooked on the folksy wisdom of Arabian proverbs.

To the extent that proverbs embody a people’s culture and traditions, it is reasonanble to conclude, from my admittedly limited comparison of various proverbs, that how we experience reality, what we consider as proper rules of conduct, and the values that we want to pass on to the next generation seem to be universal across various cultures and religions. Try these:

A little debt makes a debtor, a great one an enemy.

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Judge a man by the reputation of his enemies.

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If you stop every time a dog barks, your road will never end.

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If you have much, give of your wealth; if you have little, give of your heart.

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Compete, don't envy.

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Diligence is the mother of good luck.

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Do not cut down the tree that gives you shade.

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I am a prince and you are a prince; who will lead the donkeys?

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Beware of one who flatters unduly; he will also censure unjustly.

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A man profits more by the sight of an idiot than by the orations of the learned.

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Keep your friends close - hold your enemies closer.

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Arrogance diminishes wisdom.

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A fool may be known by six things: anger, without cause; speech, without profit; change, without progress; inquiry, without object; putting trust in a stranger, and mistaking foes for friends.

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When you heard that a mountain was moved, believe it; but when you hear that someone changed his character do not believe it.

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Do not tell a friend anything you would conceal from an enemy.

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A man's capacity is the same as his breadth of vision.

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When you have spoken the word, it reigns over you. When it is unspoken you reign over it.

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If power is for sale, sell your mother to buy it. You can always buy her back again.

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A wise man associating with the vicious becomes an idiot; a dog traveling with good men becomes a rational being.

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At the narrow passage there is no brother and no friend.

Sources: www.worldofquotes.com and www.thinkexist.com.

(Royalty-free photo shown above courtesy of www.sxc.hu)

YouTube Video: Tuesdays With Morrie-Part 10

Quotes on Happiness

"The aim of life is to live and to live means to be aware - joyously,
drunkenly, serenely, divinely aware." -Henry Miller

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"You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life." -Albert Camus

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"Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be." -Abraham Lincoln

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"The moments of happiness we enjoy take us by surprise. It is not that we seize them, but they seize us." -Ashley Montagu

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"Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful." -Albert Schweitzer

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"The grand essentials of happiness are: something to do, something to love, and something to hope for." -Allan K. Chalmers

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"Nobody really cares if you're miserable, so you might as well be happy." -Cynthia Nelms

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"We all live with the objective of being happy; our lives are all different and yet the same." -Anne Frank

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"A certain simplicity of living is usually necessary to happiness." -Henry Chapin

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"Grief can take care of itself, but to get the full value of joy you must have somebody to divide it with." -Mark Twain

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"Happiness is a by-product of an effort to make someone else happy." -Gretta Brooker Palmer

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"There is only one happiness in life, to love and be loved." -George Sand


(Photo courtesy of www.stockxpert.com)

YouTube Video: Tuesdays With Morrie-Part 9

YouTube Video: Tuesdays With Morrie-Part 8

Blog Action Day: Quotes on the Environment

Today, October 15, is Blog Action Day, when all participating bloggers around the Web write on just a single issue--the environment. My humble contribution to this effort, this being a Quotes blog, are the following memorable quotations on the environment:

"In our every deliberation, we must consider the impact of our decisions on the next seven generations."
- From The Great Law of The Iroquois Confederacy

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"You must be the change you wish to see in the world." - M. Gandhi

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"I'd put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power! I hope we don't have to wait till oil and coal run out before we tackle that." - Thomas Edison

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"There are three kinds of men. The ones that learn by reading. The few who learn by observation. The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence for themselves." - Anon.

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"Now I see the secret of the making of the best persons; it is to grow in the open air and eat and sleep with the Earth."
- Walt Whitman

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"Increasingly, the world around us looks as if we hated it."
-Alan Watts

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"Not to have known, as most men have not, either the mountains or the desert, is not to have known oneself."
- Joseph Wood Krutch

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"He who is harmony with Nature hits the mark without effort and apprehends the truth without thinking."
- Confucius

YouTube Video: Tuesdays With Morrie-Part 7

YouTube Video: Tuesdays With Morrie-Part 6

YouTube Video: Tuesdays With Morrie-Part 5

YouTube Video: Tuesdays With Morrie-Part 4

YouTube Video: Tuesdays With Morrie-Part 3

Clipmarks: Famous Quotes from Albert Einstein

I don't know if you're a science nut, but I'm awed by Albert Einstein's genius. Now, I respect him even more as a person because of his all-too human side which I didn't see before. Try these quotes which I imported from Clipmarks.com, where I'm a registered member (if you're a blogger, why don't you become one yourself?):

clipped from www.ruhanirabin.com Famous Quotes from Albert Einstein We always have something to learn from this Talented Genius Albert Einstein . Here are some of his most famous quotes.  In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they are not. Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius (and a lot of courage) to move in the opposite direction. A table, a chair, a bowl of fruit and a violin - what else does a man need to be happy? Imagination is more important than knowledge. Before God we are all equally wise - and equally foolish. One does not make wars less likely by formulating rules of warfare. Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love. I want to know God's thoughts; the rest are details. If the facts don't fit the theory, change the facts. The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax. Science is a wonderful thing if one does not have to earn one's living at it.

YouTube Video: Tuesdays With Morrie-Part2

Trivia: Knowing People

Is it true that people who are the most worth knowing are the hardest to get to know?

Studies at Purdue University found the opposite to be true. The investigation showed that people who are the most difficult to get to know, or who don't like to reveal their true selves to another person, tend to be conflict-ridden, unhappy with themselves, and incapable of a really rewarding relationship with any other human being. They wear a mask, or public self, and they are quick to resent it when any one shows enough interest to probe more deeply to find out what they are really like.

The same studies showed that happy people, who had few conflicts, showed no tendency to hide their real selves behind surface appearances or affectations. They were the same all the way through, liked being known and understood by others, and enjoyed cultivating close relationships with people they were attracted to.

Source: Alfredo M. Tengco (ed.), "Nuggets and Grin Tonics" (Book 1)

(Photo courtesy of www.stockxpert.com)