"The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People" by Stephen R. Covey

Kindle Edition here.

• "If we wanted to change the situation, we first had to change ourselves. . . And to change ourselves effectively, we first had to change our perceptions."

• "Each of us guards a gate of change that can only be opened from the inside."

• "what we are communicates far more eloquently than anything we say or do"

• "until a person can say deeply and honestly, “I am what I am today because of the choices I made yesterday,” that person cannot say, “I choose otherwise.”

• "The way we see the problem is the problem."

• "We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit."

"The Power of Concentration" by Theron Q. Dumont

Free Kindle edition here.

• "Concentration makes the will and intellect act in unison."

• "Most people are imitators and copiers of their past selves."

• "It is just as easy to be courageous as cowardly. Courage concentrates the mental forces on the task at hand."

• "No one knows what they can do until they try."

Personal: Jim Morrison

• "There are things known and things unknown and in between are the doors."
• "I like any reaction I can get with my music. Just anything to get people to think. I mean if you can get a whole room full of drunk, stoned people to actually wake up and think, you're doing something."
• “People are afraid of themselves, of their own reality; their feelings most of all. People talk about how great love is, but that’s bullshit. Love hurts. Feelings are disturbing. People are taught that pain is evil and dangerous. How can they deal with love if they’re afraid to feel? Pain is meant to wake us up. People try to hide their pain. But they’re wrong. Pain is something to carry, like a radio. You feel your strength in the experience of pain. It’s all in how you carry it. That’s what matters. Pain is a feeling. Your feelings are a part of you. Your own reality. If you feel ashamed of them, and hide them, you’re letting society destroy your reality. You should stand up for your right to feel your pain.”
• “It may have been in pieces, but I gave you the best of me.”
• “I think the highest and lowest points are the important ones. Anything else is just...in between.”
• "If my poetry aims to achieve anything, it's to deliver people from the limited ways in which they see and feel."

Francesca Woodman: Personal Journal

Entries from the personal journal of the young talented artist - photographer - Francesca Woodman.

• “Am I in the picture? Am I getting in or out of it? I could be a ghost, an animal or a dead body, not just this girl standing on the corner…?”

• “I was inventing a Language for people to see…” (last journal entry. January 19, 1981)

• “Then at one point I did not need to translate the notes; they went directly to my hands” (1976)

• “Real things don’t frighten me just the ones in my mind do.”

  
  

"Thoughts on Art and Life" by Leonardo da Vinci

The notes of Leonardo da Vinci introduced and edited by Lewis Einstein and Maurice Baring.
Free Kindle edition here.

•  "let not thy rage or malice destroy so great a thing as life, for he who does not value it does not deserve it"
• "That which can be lost cannot be deemed riches. Virtue is our true wealth and the true reward of its possessor; it cannot be lost, it never deserts us until life leaves us. Hold property and external riches with fear; they often leave their possessor scorned and mocked at for having lost them."
• "the age which flies glides by in stealth and deceives others; and nothing is more swift than the years, and he who sows virtue reaps glory."
• "A long life is a life well spent."

"Sidelights on Relativity" by Albert Einstein

Kindle edition here.

• "One reason why mathematics enjoys special esteem, above all other sciences, is that its laws are absolutely certain and indisputable, while those of all other sciences are to some extent debatable and in constant danger of being overthrown by newly discovered facts."

• "Newton's theory is probably the greatest stride ever made in the effort towards the causal nexus of natural phenomena."

• "And yet this theory evoked a lively sense of discomfort among Newton's contemporaries, because it seemed to be in conflict with the principle springing from the rest of experience, that there can be reciprocal action only through contact, and not through immediate action at a distance."

"Reflections on War and Death" by Sigmund Freud

Kindle edition here.

• "Caught in the whirlwind of these war times"
• "It would seem as though no event had ever destroyed so much of the precious heritage of mankind, confused so many of the clearest intellects or so thoroughly debased what is highest."
• "Even science has lost her dispassionate impartiality. Her deeply embittered votaries are intent upon seizing her weapons to do their share in the battle against the enemy."
• "The anthropologist has to declare his opponent inferior and degenerate, the psychiatrist must diagnose him as mentally deranged."
• "One need not be a sentimentalist, one may realize the biological and physiological necessity of suffering in the economy of human life, and yet one may condemn the methods and the aims of war and long for its termination."

"The Tao of Pooh" by Benjamin Hoff

Paperback edition here.

• "Life itself, when understood and utilized for what it is, is sweet."
• ". . . but, no matter how he may seem to others, especially to those fooled by appearances, Pooh, the Uncarved Block, is able to accomplish what he does because he is simpleminded. As any old Taoist walking out of the woods can tell you, simpleminded does not necessarily mean stupid. It's rather significant that the Taoist ideal is that of the still, calm, reflecting 'mirror-mind' of the Uncarved Block, and it's rather significant that Pooh, rather than the thinkers Rabbit, Owl, or Eeyore, is the true hero of Winnie-the-Pooh."

"Rabbit's clever," said Pooh thoughtfully."

"Yes," said Piglet, "Rabbit's clever."

"And he has Brain."

"Yes," said Piglet, "Rabbit has Brain."

There was a long silence.

"I suppose," said Pooh, "that that's why he never understands anything."

"The Way of Peace" by James Allen

Kindle edition here.

• "Meditation is the intense dwelling, in thought, upon an idea or theme, with the object of thoroughly comprehending it, and whatsoever you constantly meditate upon you will not only come to understand, but will grow more and more into its likeness, for it will become incorporated into your very being, will become, in fact, your very self. If, therefore, you constantly dwell upon that which is selfish and debasing, you will ultimately become selfish and debased; if you ceaselessly think upon that which is pure and unselfish you will surely become pure and unselfish."
• "There is an unavoidable tendency to become literally the embodiment of that quality upon which one most constantly thinks."
• "He who would secure any worldly advantage must be willing to work vigorously for it, and he would be foolish indeed who, waiting with folded hands, expected it to come to him for the mere asking."
• "Do not then vainly imagine that you can obtain the heavenly possessions without making an effort."

"The Misfit" by Steven Poser

Kindle edition here.

• "You can imagine how difficult it is treating a Hollywood actress, who has so many serious problems and is completely alone in the world, and yet at the same time is extremely famous." 

• "She was so childlike she could do anything, and you would forgive as you would forgive a seven-year old. She was both a woman and a baby, and both men and women adored her." 

"Common Sense" by Thomas Payne

Kindle edition here.

• "Some writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them"
• "Society is produced by our wants, and government by wickedness; the former promotes our happiness POSITIVELY by uniting our affections, the latter NEGATIVELY by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher."
• "Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one"
• "I draw my idea of the form of government from a principle in nature, which no art can overturn, viz. that the more simple any thing is, the less liable it is to be disordered, and the easier repaired when disordered"
• "There is something exceedingly ridiculous in the composition of monarchy; it first excludes a man from the means of information, yet empowers him to act in cases where the highest judgment is required. The state of a king shuts him from the world, yet the business of a king requires him to know it thoroughly"

"Dynamics of Faith" by Paul Tillich

Paperback and Kindle edition via Amazon.

• "There is hardly a word in the religious language, both theological and popular, which is subject to more misunderstanding, distortions and questionable definitions that the word "faith." It belongs to those terms which need healing before they can be used to the healing of men."
• "Today the term "faith" is more productive of disease than of health. It confuses, misleads, creates alternately skepticism and fanaticism, intellectual resistance and emotional surrender, rejection of genuine religion and subjection to substitutes."
• "there is as yet no substitute expressing the reality to which the term "faith"points. So, for the time being, the only way of dealing with the problem is to try to reinterpret"
• "Faith is the state of being ultimately concerned: the dynamics of faith are the dynamics of man's ultimate concern."
  

"As a Man Thinketh" by James Allen

Download here or here.

• "The aphorism, "As a man thinketh in his heart so is he," not only embraces the whole of a man's being, but is so comprehensive as to reach out to every condition and circumstance of his life. A man is literally what he thinks, his character being the complete sum of all his thoughts."
• "Act is the blossom of thought, and joy and suffering are its fruits"
• "cause and effect is as absolute and undeviating in the hidden realm of thought as in the world of visible and material things"
• "A noble and Godlike character is not a thing of favour or chance, but is the natural result of continued effort in right thinking, the effect of long-cherished association with Godlike thoughts. An ignoble and bestial character, by the same process, is the result of the continued harbouring of grovelling thoughts."
• "Man is made or unmade by himself; in the armoury of thought he forges the weapons by which he destroys himself; he also fashions the tools with which he builds for himself heavenly mansions of joy and strength and peace."
• "man is the master of thought, the moulder of character, and the maker and shaper of condition, environment, and destiny"

"The Future of an Illusion" by Sigmund Freud

The Future of an Illusion (by Sigmund Freud) - the Kindle edition.

•  "The one person this publication may injure is myself."

•  "It is possible that cultural development lie ahead of us in which the satisfaction of yet other wishes, which are entirely permissible today, will appear just as unacceptable as cannibalism is today." 

• "It goes without saying that a civilization which leaves so large a number of its participants unsatisfied and drives them into revolt neither has nor deserves prospect of a lasting experience." 

• "scientific work is the only road which can lead us to a knowledge of reality outside ourselves. It is once again merely an illusion to expect anything from intuition and introspection; they can give us nothing but particulars about our own mental life, which are hard to interpret 

• "Civilization has little to fear from educated people and brainworkers."

• "But surely infantilism is destined to be surmounted. Men cannot remain children for ever; they must in the end go out into the 'hostile life'. We may call this 'education to reality'."

• "The voice of the intellect is a soft one, but it does not rest till it has gained a hearing." 

• "in the long run nothing can withstand reason and experience" 

• "No, our science is no illusion. But an illusion would be to suppose that what science cannot give us we can get elsewhere."

The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer: The Wisdom of Life

Download here or here.

• "a man is in himself, what accompanies him when he is alone, what no one can give or take away"
• "The only thing that stands in our power to achieve, is to make the most advantageous use possible of the personal qualities we possess"
• "Ordinary people think merely how they shall spend their time; a man of any talent tries to use it."
• "the same external events or circumstances affect no two people alike; even with perfectly similar surroundings every one lives in a world of his own"
•  "The world in which a man lives shapes itself chiefly by the way in which he looks at it, and so it proves different to different men; to one it is barren, dull, and superficial; to another rich, interesting, and full of meaning."
• "every man is pent up within the limits of his own consciousness"
• "the highest, most varied and lasting pleasures are those of the mind"

"Soul Searching: Why Psychotherapy Must Promote Moral Responsibility" by William Doherty

Kindle edition.

• "pushing me to be  more courageous at times when I was waffling"
• "psychotherapy in America is facing a crisis of public confidence"
• "the crisis is over psychotherapy's ability to  speak to the profound social and moral problems of our day"
• "Are  therapists making these problems worse by justifying the contemporary   flight from personal responsibility, moral accountability,  and participatory community?"
• "Two of the most prominent philosophers in the world,  Alasdair Maclntyre and Jurgen Habermas, have each raised concerns   about the impact of the "therapeutic culture" on contemporary   mores and morality. Both implicate psychotherapy in the  decline of family and community in the Western world."
• "moral lobotomy"
• "This book argues that therapists since the time of Freud have overemphasized individual self-interest"

The Art of War by Sun Tzu

Download here or here.

• "He who relies solely on warlike measures shall be exterminated; he who relies solely on peaceful measures shall perish."
• "Military weapons are the means used by the Sage to punish violence and cruelty, to give peace to troublous times, to remove difficulties and dangers, and to succor those who are in peril."
• "Every animal with blood in its veins and horns on its head will fight when it is attacked."
• "If I fight, I conquer."
• "All warfare is based on deception."
• "when able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must seem inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near."