“You are honest enough by nature to be able to see and judge your own self clearly – and that is a great thing. Never lose that honesty- always be honest with yourself, know your own motives for what they are, good or bad, make your own decisions firmly and justly – and you will […]

‘A proverb is a short sentence based on long experience’, so said Miguel de Cervantes. “If you lie down with dogs, you will get up with fleas.” Proverbs are nuggets of wisdom, passed down through centuries which we can still learn from today. “A chain is only as strong as its weakest link.” In his […]

The front piece of the book Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes, 1651. Engraved by Abraham Bosse We are not constrained by codes of conduct demanded from the civil society we know today. We are in essence, lone, independent beings, purely working from the thoughts and behaviours we naturally would have.This pre-social condition is what philosophers called […]

We are going to be mistreated by someone at some time, or many people, many times. It may be in big ways or small, intentionally or unintentionally. It is just one of those things that is promised to us. When we are mistreated, most of us react, and reactions are emotional. We get angry, upset […]

Meister Eckhart (1260-1328) is quoted as saying “A human being has so many skins inside, covering the depths of the heart. We know so many things, but we don’t know ourselves! Why, thirty or forty skins or hides, as thick and hard as an ox’s or bear’s, cover the soul. Go into your own ground […]

Meister Eckhart (1260-1328) is quoted as saying “A human being has so many skins inside, covering the depths of the heart. We know so many things, but we don’t know ourselves! Why, thirty or forty skins or hides, as thick and hard as an ox’s or bear’s, cover the soul. Go into your own ground […]

What does it mean to be compassionate? It always helps to look at the definition of a word when it’s so often used, as its meaning can become muddled. In the Oxford Dictionary, compassion is defined as “sympathetic pity and concern for the sufferings or misfortunes of others, e.g, ‘the victims should be treated with […]

Mind With all this noise we fail to see anything around us. We cannot see the sun shining in the clear blue sky or feel the new touch of warmth in the breeze. As if with a message, a loud series of short, sharp calls suddenly come from overhead.

The difference between being busy and productive is just about everything. Which are we? With quotes from H.D Thoreau, W. Penn & more. In order to make use of our time, we must realise the uncertainty of our future. If we do not consciously accept how fragile we are by nature, what motivation have we […]

Like a train speeding down the track, it’s a hard animal to stop. Its catalyst needn’t be anything big, it can be something small that fires up the engines; a particular person, a movement, a word, perhaps a memory. It begins off smouldering and grows under our attention. As we indulgently brood over our emotions, […]

Mind With all this noise we fail to see anything around us. We cannot see the sun shining in the clear blue sky or feel the new touch of warmth in the breeze. As if with a message, a loud series of short, sharp calls suddenly come from overhead.

We look up at the ideal we fall so short of, embittered. If only that target wasn’t so high, or better again, if it didn’t exist at all, we wouldn’t appear so dreadful! In doing so, we bring the heavens crashing down to join us in the slums. Now we are level. Like handing someone […]

How about taking responsibility for it all? Every bit; whether you’re to blame or not. Quotes from Viktor Frankl, G. K. Chesterton and Terry Pratchett. It can be difficult to conceptualise fortune as we cannot see it or touch it, but we experience it nonetheless. Most difficult to grasp, is how random and often unfairly […]

Emerson, 1837, pg.21 When we travel to new places, we seem to wear a new lens. We actively seek moments of awe. We soak-in every moment of beauty and find inspiring moments even in the most desolate of circumstances. We’re seeing differently, more opportunistically; opening ourselves up to the possibility of being awe-struck. That engagement […]