Jiachen Jiang

We are not always humiliated by failing at things, he suggested; we are humiliated only if we invest our pride and sense of worth in a given aspiration or achievement and then are disappointed in our pursuit of it.

There is no escape from your own subjectivity. At present, the world seems complicated and mysterious to you, but if you change, the world will appear more simple. The issue is not about how the world is, but about how you are.

“If you get the answer, you should hang up the phone.”

Tolstoy sums up the judge’s life in a single sentence: “The pleasures Ivan Ilyich derived from his work were those of pride; the pleasures he derived from society were those of vanity; but it was genuine pleasure that he derived from playing whist.”

One makes a show of being on good terms with a powerful person (broadly speaking—it could be anyone from the leader of your school class to a famous celebrity). And by doing that, one lets it be known that one is special. Behaviors like misrepresenting one’s work experience or excessive allegiance to particular brands of clothing are forms of givin... See more

Other people’s heads are too wretched a place for true happiness to have its seat. SCHOPENHAUER, PARERGA AND PARALIPOMENA(1851)

People are nicer than they look, but you have to go first.

Good rule for Acro and for life: Tell people what you want, not what you don’t want, and keep it simple.