12 Quotes by John Leland

Some men think more than they read. Others read more than they think. Those who practice both, grow wise. Those who follow neither, remain ignorant.

Older people knowing they face a limited time in front of them, focus their energies on things that give them pleasure in the moment, whereas young people, with long horizons, seek out new experiences or knowledge that may or may not pay off down the line. Young people fret about the things they don't have and might need later; old people winnow the things they have to the few they most enjoy.

Being an expert is exhausting. Being a student-letting go of your ego-is like sitting for a banquet at the best restaurant you’ll ever visit.

The lesson was to find happiness not in the absence of pain and loss, but in their acceptance.

We do ourselves a big favor not to be scared of growing old, but to embrace the mixed bag that the years have to offer, however severe the losses.

I choose art and beauty, vague as those terms are, against ugliness and horrors in which we live today. For somebody to look at a flower or listen to music does something to one, has a positive effect, and being surrounded by ugliness and horror does something negative. So I feel my duty not to betray those poets, scientists, saints, singers, troubadours of the past centuries who did everything that humanity would become more beautiful. I have to continue in my small way their work.

It’s a kind of moral dictum, moral responsibility to keep in mind that whatever I do this second affects what the next second will be. So I try not to do anything negative, which is my best insurance that the world will be better next second, or at least not worse.

Have you ever thought about how amazing, really amazing, life is?

One could live to two hundred. But yet I see some young people, twenty years old, and they seem to be bored already with life, and some of them cannot stand it. That’s something else.