So I made another collection! This round of inspirational quotes goes to the philosophers. Like the other times, I hope you enjoy these inspirational quotes and find them inspiring too!
Plato
“The beginning is the most important part of the work.”
“A good decision is based on knowledge and not on numbers.”
“The good is the beautiful.”
Lao Tzu
“From caring comes courage.”
“Do the difficult things while they are easy and do the great things while they are small. A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.”
“When you are content to be simply yourself and don’t compare or compete, everybody will respect you.”
“At the center of your being you have the answer; you know who you are and you know what you want.”
“Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don’t resist them - that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.”
Aristotle
“Happiness depends upon ourselves.”
“You will never do anything in this world without courage. It is the greatest quality of the mind next to honor.”
Socrates
“Be as you wish to seem.”
“It is not living that matters, but living rightly.”
“Let him that would move the world first move himself.”
Epictetus
“No great thing is created suddenly.”
“The key is to keep company only with people who uplift you, whose presence calls forth your best.”
“It takes more than just a good looking body. You’ve got to have the heart and soul to go with it.”
“First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do.”
“Practice yourself, for heaven’s sake in little things, and then proceed to greater.”
“There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power of our will.”
“Make the best use of what is in your power, and take the rest as it happens.”
“Do not seek to bring things to pass in accordance with your wishes, but wish for them as they are, and you will find them.”
“It is not he who reviles or strikes you who insults you, but your opinion that these things are insulting.”
“Neither should a ship rely on one small anchor, nor should life rest on a single hope.”
“It’s not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.”
“The greater the difficulty the more glory in surmounting it. Skillful pilots gain their reputation from storms and tempests.”
“You may be always victorious if you will never enter into any contest where the issue does not wholly depend upon yourself.”
Soren Kierkegaard
“Be that self which one truly is.”
“Life has its own hidden forces which you can only discover by living.”
“The highest and most beautiful things in life are not to be heard about, nor read about, nor seen but, if one will, are to be lived.”
“Face the facts of being what you are, for that is what changes what you are.”
“Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced.”
Hypatia
“Life is an unfoldment, and the further we travel the more truth we can comprehend. To understand the things that are at our door is the best preparation for understanding those that lie beyond.”
“Reserve your right to think, for even to think wrongly is better than not to think at all.”
Confucius
“The will to win, the desire to succeed, the urge to reach your full potential… these are the keys that will unlock the door to personal excellence.”
“It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.”
“Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it.”
“Wherever you go, go with all your heart.”
“When it is obvious that the goals cannot be reached, don’t adjust the goals, adjust the action steps.”
“Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.”
Albert Camus
“To be happy we must not be too concerned with others.”
“Basically, at the very bottom of life, which seduces us all, there is only absurdity, and more absurdity. And maybe that’s what gives us our joy for living, because the only thing that can defeat absurdity is lucidity.”
“I know of only one duty, and that is to love.”
“The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.”
“You cannot create experience. You must undergo it.”
“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.”
容易 (róng yì) — easy 放弃 (fàng qì) — to abandon 换 (huàn) — to exchange 鲜艳 (xiān yàn) — brightly-coloured 涂 (tú) — to apply 颜色 (yán sè) — colour 功 (gōng) — achievement, success 成名 (chéng míng) — to become famous
目的 (mù dì) — aim 快乐 (kuài lè) — happy 所谓 (suǒ wèi) — so-called 赤脚 (chì jiǎo) — bare feet 摘 (zhāi) — to pluck 稻草 (dào cǎo) — rice straw 吉他 (jí tā) — guitar 鸣 (míng) — call (of birds, animals, or insects) 清脆 (qīng cuì) — clear and melodious 洒 (sǎ) — to sprinkle
Words taken from: 稻香 Complete song lyrics: 稻香
对信任你的人,永远别撒谎。对你撒谎的人,永远别太相信。
Never lie to someone who trusts you and never trust someone who lies to to you.
不要降低你的梦想为了屈服现实。增加你的信念去匹配你的命运。
Don’t downgrade your dream just to fit your reality. Upgrade your conviction to match your destiny.
有空儿 /yǒu kòngr/ - free
没空儿 /méi kòngr/ - busy
抽空儿 /chōukòngr/ - to manage to find time to do something
明天下午你有空儿吗?/ míngtiān xiàwǔ nǐ yǒu kòngr ma / - Are you free tomorrow afternoon?
两点以前没空儿,两点以后又空儿。/liǎng diǎn yǐqián méi kòng er, liǎng diǎn yǐhòu yòu kòngr./ - Before 2PM, I’m busy, after 2PM I’m free.
生活是一场漫长的旅行,不要浪费时间,去等待那些不愿与你携手同行的人。
Life is a long journey. Don’t waste your time waiting for people who are not willing to walk with you.
I write this bcz I’m a huge language enthusiast and I’m frustrated about the way most methods and language classes/courses approach the process of learning. I’m not a professional but I have a lot of experience in studying foreign languages: I have taught myself Lithuanian and reached the upper intermediate level (B2) in 4-5 years without much help from others, and in Spanish reaching the same level took me only 2 years bcz I simultaneously studied it at school and already knowing French helped me a little. I want to help everyone who wants to start a new language, does not have the possibility to join a language course or just feels frustrated of the stagnation they might experience in the early phase of learning a foreign language.
So, if you want to learn a new language, I suggest following tips:
• Immerse yourself from the beginning! This is really important so that you can get yourself familiar with the intonation and pronunciation of the language. Listen to radio or tv and try to read whatever you can (ingredient lists from the food packages, newspaper articles, whatever!) it doesn’t matter if you can’t understand much yet, it will come! If you start a language with a new alphabet learn the alphabet really well first thing.
• Get an overview of the grammatical structure of the language! This is often not properly done in language courses where you learn some vocabulary and greetings but after 60 pages of the textbook you still have no idea how many verb tenses or noun cases the language has. Take a look even at the “hardest” topics, bcz they might not be that hard after all. (for example the Spanish equivalent of past perfect is much easier than the present tense)
• With that being said, learn to recognise past tenses even when you are still learning the present tense! I find it absurd that most courses expect you to master present tense _perfectly_ before even taking a look at other tenses. Most of the time, in everyday communication, past tenses are used more frequently than the present tense + in some languages mastering the past tense can also help you to form the conditional. So, learn the past tense earlier than most ppl would recommend!
• In general, study the easiest things first! If you find something particularly difficult you gain more confidence and knowledge if you first focus on what you find more interesting (however, you can’t postpone studying boring topics eternally, especially if you are preparing or hoping to prepare for an exam at some point) In Lithuanian, I taught myself a lot of grammar before learning how to tell the time… and it was ok.
• For material: usually the country’s universities have a reading list on their website which proposes what books one could use to study the language. These are often preferable to handbooks aimed for tourists and some language methods for beginners because those mostly focus on useless vocabulary you might only need when you rent a car or book a room in a hotel. The grammar is often also relatively poorly explained in those “tourist language books”, whereas books that are aimed at immigrants or university students usually focus more on the efficient language acquisition and are written by professors and specialists. If you are persistent enough and google all possible search words in both English and the target language, you can probably find whole textbooks in PDF format, which you can then save on your laptop.
• Don’t get stuck on vocabulary! Remember that grammar is the skeleton of the language and that vocabulary is the muscles hair and eventually the clothes you use to dress up and embellish your apperance. Vocabulary is useful once you know how to use it. For me, learning vocab is the hardest part of a new language, especially bcz I like starting languages that are not really similar to any other languages I know (consider Lithuanian and Greek when I previously knew Finnish, English, French and Spanish) ofc you need to learn some of it to be able to form sentences but most traditional methods focus on that too much. My suggestion is to read a lot: start by children’s books and comics and gradually get more advanced material. When you read them, make notes!! Look up the words you don’t know and don’t be afraid of using unconventional, seemingly challenging ways to learn, such as buying a bilingual poetry collection and trying to decipher what the original poem says and compare it to the translation. 100% recommend, even for the beginner level + it’s a nice way to connect to the culture but still focus on the language itself, not on the way ppl make breakfast in that country. (That’s something that irritates me a lot in most Youtube’s language videos where ppl are just discussing the traditions of the country in English when you had come there to look for the explanation of grammatical structures or just to hear the language being spoken. smh.)
• A really important thing about vocabulary is to learn all the abstract words, such as conjunctions, really soon! For example, if you find yourself in a situation where you have to use the words therefore and otherwise, it is almost impossible to try to explain those words without first translating them to another language.
• Make vocabulary learning more interesting and deep by learning about the etymology of the words you learn. It can be mind-blowing and it helps you to remember the words better.
That’s it!
I hope these tips inspire you in pursuing your interest in foreign languages and facilitate your learning process. I might add more to this if I remember I have forgotten something of great importance.
This is a great idea for those wanting to create a unique home decor in a space. A tapestry hanging from your ceiling can add a wonderful scenic feature to your room, giving some love to the most forgotten element of your home… the ceilings! So why not hang a special ceiling tapestry for that?
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DISCLAIMER: This is in traditional Chinese!
可 attached to a verb more or less lets you turn it into an adjective of the able to (verb) kind. That was a terrible explanation here have a vocab list
可愛 kě'ài lovable, cute (where kawaii comes from)
可憐 kělián pitiable
可靠 kěkào reliable (kào is to depend on)
可惜 kěxí unfortunately, regrettably
可疑 kěyí suspicious
可笑 kěxiào laughable, ridiculous
可氣 kěqì frustrating, exasperating
可怕 kěpà terrifying
There are more (because there are always more) but now you get how great a name/transliteration 可樂 kělè is for “coke,” it looks like happy-able! Coca-cola is specifically 可口可樂, so like “can drink, can happy” but really “good to drink, makes you happy.” (supposedly shop keepers at one point transliterated as 蝌蝌啃蠟 kē kē kěn là, “bite the wax tadpole,” but that was never official. Reasons to pay your translator well.)
别让那些不懂珍惜你的人来衡量你的价值。
Don’t let someone who doesn’t know your value tell you how much you’re worth.