All quotes from
Shannon's book
Be pliable. When a man is
living, he is soft and pliable; when he is dead, he becomes rigid. Pliability
is life; rigidity is death, whether one speaks of man’s body, mind or his
spirit.
You have to create your own luck. You have to be aware of the
opportunities around you and take advantage of them.
Once I slow down because I think I have reached my peak, then my
skills will go nowhere but down.
Learning is definitely not mere imitation, nor is it the ability to
accumulate and regurgitate fixed knowledge.
Learning is a constant process of discovery – a process without end.
In building a statue, a sculptor doesn’t keep adding clay to his
subject. Actually, he keeps chiseling
away at the nonessential until the truth of his creation is revealed without
obstruction.
You must accept the fact that there is no help but self-help. I cannot tell you how to gain freedom since
freedom exists within you.
Self-actualization is the important thing. And my personal message to people is that I
hope they will go toward self-actualization rather than self-image
actualization. I hope that they will
search within themselves for honest self-expression.
Independent inquiry is needed in your search for truth, not
dependence on anyone else’s view or a mere book.
What we are after is the root and not the branches. The root is the real knowledge; the branches
are surface knowledge.
It is not a shame to be knocked down by other people. The important thing is to ask when you’re
being knocked down, “Why am I being knocked down?” If a person can reflect in this way, then
there is hope for the person.
A goal is not always meant to be reached. It often serves simply as something to aim
at.
You will never get any more out of life than you expect.
Every man today is the result of his thoughts of yesterday.
With every adversity comes a blessing because a shock acts as a
reminder to oneself that we must not get stale in routine. Look at a rainstorm; after its departure,
everything grows!