The whole point of reading for enlightenment is not the number of books you read but how well you read them.
Abraham Lincoln read only a few books but he read them very well. And the English philosopher, Thomas Hobbes, said, “If I read as many books as most men do, I would be as dull-witted as they are.”
— Mortimer AdlerApproaching The Mystery
“The most important thing about art is to work. Nothing else matters except sitting down every day and trying.
Why is this so important?
Because when we sit down day after day and keep grinding, something mysterious starts to happen. A process is set into motion by which, inevitably and infallibly, heaven comes to our aid. Unseen forces enlist in our cause; serendipity reinforce our purpose.
This is the other secret the artist know and wannabe writers don’t. When we sit down each day and do our work, power concentrates around us. The Muse takes note of our dedication. She approves. We have earned favor in her sight. When we sit down and work, we become like a magnetized rod that attracts iron filings. Ideas come. Insight accrete.”
Source: The War of Art, by Steven Pressfield
Believing the Unbelievable
“A child has no trouble believing the unbelievable, nor does the genius or the madman. It’s only you and I, with our big brains and our tiny hearts, who doubt and overthink and hesitate.”
- Source: Do the Work, by Steven Pressfield
The Joker
“I don’t belong anywhere. I am neither a heart, a diamond, a club, nor a spade. I am neither a King, a Jack, an Eight, nor an Ace. As I am here – I am merely the Joker, and who that is I have had to find out for myself.
Every time I toss my head, the jingling bells remind me that I have no family. I have no number – and no trade either.
I have gone around observing your activities from the outside. Because of this I have also been able to see things to which you have been blind. Every morning you have gone to work, but you have never been fully awake.
It is different for the Joker, because he was put into this world with a flaw: he sees too deeply and too much. Truth is a lonely thing.”
Source: The Solitaire Mystery, by Jostein Gardner
The Blank Canvas
“Hitler wanted to be an artist. At eighteen he took his inheritance, seven hundred kornen, and moved to Vienna to live and study. He applied to the Academy of Fine Arts and later to the School of Architecture. Ever see one of his paintings? Neither have I. Resistance beat him. Call it overstatement but I’ll say it anyway: it was easier for Hitler to start World War II than it was for him to face a blank square of canvas.”
Source: The War of Art, by Steven Pressfield
