Little Box of Quotes
Daily quotes. No noise.
- Some people live and act according to their own thoughts, and some according to the thoughts of others; this is a crucial distinction between people. ~ Leo Tolstoy
- Justice is what love looks like in public. ~ Cornel West
A daily quote. Simple.
Above are the two most-recent quotes sent. Yes, it updates here every day.
No nonsense, no noise, no hooks, no ads. Just one quote each day.
Want to see more of the quotes? The most-recent 20 are at the bottom!
Origin of my collection
A long long time ago I began collecting inspirational quotes and aphorisms.
I kept them on the first version of my web site, where they were displayed randomly. But as time went on, I realized I wanted them where I would see them. Eventually I copied the fledgeling collection onto 3×5 cards and put them in a small box. As I find new ones, I add cards.
I keep the box on my desk with one card showing — just wedged in so it stands up readable. I change the card randomly, whenever the urge strikes.
Countless times I’ve pulled another card and found it eerily appropriate to the challenges of the day.
Countless times I’ve returned to my desk and felt inspired upon rediscovering an old card’s whispered counsel.
Countless times, just as I was about to throw in the towel, I was saved by an echo from the little box on my desk.
Who am I?
Hello 👋 I’m Craig Constantine.
My mission is creating better conversations to spread understanding and compassion. I want us to go from simply having conversations, to actively creating better conversations. You can learn more about me and all my projects at, https://craigconstantine.com.
If you like what I’m doing, please support me via Ko-Fi. (I like Ko-Fi because they don’t take a slice from the money you contribute.)
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Latest 20 quotes
Here are the last 20 quotes sent via email. Yes, it updates here every day.
- Some people live and act according to their own thoughts, and some according to the thoughts of others; this is a crucial distinction between people. ~ Leo Tolstoy
- Justice is what love looks like in public. ~ Cornel West
- When you get older, you realize it’s a lot less about your place in the world but your place in you. It’s not how everyone views you, but how you view yourself. ~ Natalie Portman
- If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking. ~ Haruki Murakami
- What is a cynic? A man who knows the price of everything but the value of nothing. ~ Oscar Wilde
- The muses were dumb while Apollo lectured. ~ Charles Lamb
- Life is what happens to us while we are making other plans. ~ Allen Saunders
- The essence of professionalism is the focus upon the work and its demands, while we are doing it, to the exclusion of all else. The ancient Spartans schooled themselves to regard the enemy, any enemy, as nameless and faceless. In other words, they believed that if they did their work, no force on Earth could stand against them. ~ Steven Pressfield
- Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity. ~ George S. Patton
- Your education shouldn’t end when your schooling does. If you want to get an edge in life, you must be constantly learning, not coasting along on what you already know. Lifelong learning requires the ability to reflect on your mistakes, a lot of reading, and testing what you know. ~ Shane Parrish
- Socrates knew how a rational soul is moved; that it is like a balance, and if a weight is thrown in the scale, it will incline whether you wish it or not. Show the rational governing faculty a contradiction, and it will renounce it; but if you fail to do so, blame yourself rather than the person whom you are unable to convince. ~ Epictetus
- There is a place, right on the edge of your ability, where you learn best and fastest. It’s called the sweet spot.…The underlying pattern is the same: Seek out ways to stretch yourself. Play on the edges of your competence. As Albert Einstein said, “One must develop an instinct for what one can just barely achieve through one’s greatest efforts.” The key word is ‘barely.’ ~ Daniel Coyle
- And I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, ‘If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is. ~ Kurt Vonnegut
- Dreams come true. You just have to be willing to work for them. ~ Annie Mist Þórisdóttir
- I will keep constant watch over myself and—most usefully—will put each day up for review. For this is what makes life evil—that none of us looks back upon our own lives. We reflect upon only that which we are about to do. And yet our plans for the future descend from the past. ~ Seneca
- Problem identification is always a sound investment of time, money, and energy. It feels uncomfortable to spend time and resources trying to figure out exactly what the problem is—we want to jump to fixing way too fast. Most of use are plagued with action bias and really struggle to stay in problem identification. I’ve found that getting clear about what’s wrong and why it’s a problem is the best investment you can make at home or work. ~ Brené Brown
- We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery, we need humanity. More than cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness. ~ Charlie Chaplin
- There are only four stories: A love story between two people, a love story between three people, the struggle for power, and the journey. Every single book that is in the bookstore deals with these four archetypes, these four themes. ~ Paulo Coelho
- If there was a little more silence, if we all kept quiet… maybe we could understand something. ~ Federico Fellini
- The inability to think logically is a form of bondage. The refusal to think logically is proof of already being bound. ~ Kareem Abdul-Jabar