Quotessence
Home / Quotes / Quote by Kevin L. Michel

Quote by Kevin L. Michel

Work

The Power of the Present: A Stoic's Guide to Unyielding Focus

Browse quotes and source details for this work. more

Author

Kevin L. Michel

Browse famous quotes and profile details for Kevin L. Michel. more

You May Also Like

“Yet the object of our focus is not to be chosen lightly. In the marketplace of ambitions, dreams are sold in all sizes and shapes. But true fulfillment and achievement do not lie in the mere attainment of goals, but rather in the pursuit of those that are truly worthy. A target, after all, gives direction to our arrow, but the archer’s glory lies not in merely hitting the target, but in striking one that demands skill and character.”

AttentionFocusMeditationDreamsMindfulnessFlowStoicismStoicAdhd
Book:The Power of the Present: A Stoic's Guide to Unyielding Focus
Create image

“Beware the folly of lending your focus to vain pursuits. Just as a river, when it is split into countless rivulets, loses its force and becomes but a whimper, a mind divided by trivial pursuits dissipates its strength. Focus, therefore, is not merely concentration, it is selection; not merely observation, it is dedication.”

AttentionFocusMeditationDreamsMindfulnessFlowStoicismStoicAdhd
Book:The Power of the Present: A Stoic's Guide to Unyielding Focus
Create image

“Imagine, if you will, a bird in flight. When it must overcome the gusts that hinder its path, it beats its wings with unyielding force. Yet, when it soars high in the sky, it spreads its wings and rides the wind, at peace in its journey. This is the model of focus we must aspire to: resolute in the face of opposition, tranquil in the embrace of flow.”

AttentionFocusMeditationDreamsMindfulnessFlowStoicismStoicAdhd
Book:The Power of the Present: A Stoic's Guide to Unyielding Focus
Create image

“I looked about me. Luminous points glowed in the darkness. Cigarettes punctuated the humble meditations of worn old clerks. I heard them talking to one another in murmurs and whispers. They talked about illness, money, shabby domestic cares. And suddenly I had a vision of the face of destiny. Old bureaucrat, my comrade, it is not you who are to blame. No one ever helped you to escape. You, like a termite, built your peace by blocking up with cement every chink and cranny through which the light might pierce. You rolled yourself up into a ball in your genteel security, in routine, in the stifling conventions of provincial life, raising a modest rampart against the winds and the tides and the stars. You have chosen not to be perturbed by great problems, having trouble enough to forget your own fate as a man. You are not the dweller upon an errant planet and do not ask yourself questions to which there are no answers. Nobody grasped you by the shoulder while there was still time. Now the clay of which you were shaped has dried and hardened, and naught in you will ever awaken the sleeping musician, the poet, the astronomer that possibly inhabited you in the beginning.”

Inspirational
Book:Wind, Sand and Stars
Create image

“And again one asks oneself what has one done with one's years. Where have you buried your best days? Have you lived or not ? Look, one says to oneself, look how cold the world is growing. Some more years will pass, and after them will come gloomy solitude; then will come old age trembling on its crutch, and after it misery and desolation. Your fantastic world will grow pale, your dreams will fade and die and will fall like the yellow leaves from the trees. ..”

LifeDreamsHopes
Author:Fyodor Dostoevsky, white nights
Create image