How To Steal Like An Artist (And 9 Other Things Nobody Told Me) - Austin Kleon. Wednesday, March 30th, 2011 Buy the book: Amazon | B&N | More… Here’s what a few folks have said about it: “Brilliant and real and true.”
—Rosanne Cash“Filled with well-formed advice that applies to nearly any kind of work.” —Lifehacker.com“Immersing yourself in Steal Like An Artist is as fine an investment in the life of your mind as you can hope to make.” Read an excerpt below… Tags: steal like an artist. SCHOPENHAUER'S 38 STRATAGEMS, OR 38 WAYS TO WIN AN ARGUMENT. Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860), was a brilliant German philosopher.
These 38 Stratagems are excerpts from "The Art of Controversy", first translated into English and published in 1896. Carry your opponent's proposition beyond its natural limits; exaggerate it. The more general your opponent's statement becomes, the more objections you can find against it. The more restricted and narrow his or her propositions remain, the easier they are to defend by him or her. Use different meanings of your opponent's words to refute his or her argument. (abstracted from the book:Numerical Lists You Never Knew or Once Knew and Probably Forget, by: John Boswell and Dan Starer)
An Essay by Einstein. "How strange is the lot of us mortals!
Each of us is here for a brief sojourn; for what purpose he knows not, though he sometimes thinks he senses it. But without deeper reflection one knows from daily life that one exists for other people -- first of all for those upon whose smiles and well-being our own happiness is wholly dependent, and then for the many, unknown to us, to whose destinies we are bound by the ties of sympathy.
A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life are based on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving... "I have never looked upon ease and happiness as ends in themselves -- this critical basis I call the ideal of a pigsty. The ideals that have lighted my way, and time after time have given me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been Kindness, Beauty, and Truth.
"My political ideal is democracy. Kurt Vonnegut explains drama. I was at a Kurt Vonnegut talk in New York a few years ago.
Talking about writing, life, and everything. He explained why people have such a need for drama in their life. He said, “People have been hearing fantastic stories since time began. The problem is, they think life is supposed to be like the stories. Let's look at a few examples.” He drew an empty grid on the board, like this: Time moves from left to right. He said, “Let's look at a very common story arc. It starts with her awful life with evil stepsisters, scrubbing the fireplace. “People LOVE that story! He wiped the board clean and said, “Now let's look at another popular story arc: the disaster.”
It's an ordinary day in an ordinary town. But the problem is, life is really like this... Our lives drifts along with normal things happening. “But because we grew up surrounded by big dramatic story arcs in books and movies, we think our lives are supposed to be filled with huge ups and downs! That's why people invent fights.