Quotes You Like

"Consume less, and less will consume you."

This quote bubbled up in my head one day. Perhaps this is something I heard, and my subconscious stole it?

@Torunn

You're Swedish, yes? Do you have a favorite, uniquely Swedish quote?

@soothfast said
@Torunn

You're Swedish, yes? Do you have a favorite, uniquely Swedish quote?

Lagom är bäst.

“Lagom” is best.

(…”lagom” describes an amount balanced by your judgment and discretion, sufficient for its purpose, a fair share, not encroaching on other’s rights).
Explained as: in the old days when all the family ate from the same pan, you only took a share that allowed the others to have theirs. (Lag = group,team / om = around)

'Lagom', an often used word - not too much, not too little.

@torunn said
Lagom är bäst.

“Lagom” is best.

(…”lagom” describes an amount balanced by your judgment and discretion, sufficient for its purpose, a fair share, not encroaching on other’s rights).
Explained as: in the old days when all the family ate from the same pan, you only took a share that allowed the others to have theirs. (Lag = group,team / om = around)

'Lagom', an often used word - not too much, not too little.

Ah, interesting!

I certainly cannot think of an English equivalent to that. Perhaps "All things in moderation" in a few circumstances, but just a few.

Thanks! 🙂

@soothfast said
Ah, interesting!

I certainly cannot think of an English equivalent to that. Perhaps "All things in moderation" in a few circumstances, but just a few.

Thanks! 🙂

Perhaps an English equivalent might be a quote from William Blake’s Proverbs of Hell. This ends with the admonition:

“Enough! or too much!”

Among those whom I like or admire, I can find no common denominator,
but among those whom I love, I can: all of them make me laugh.
W. H. Auden
US (English-born) critic & poet (1907 - 1973)

Remember that sometimes not getting what you want is a wonderful stroke of luck.
- Dalai Lama

The great Groucho Marx:

"I didn't like the play, but then I saw it under adverse conditions - the curtain was up."

Now is no time to think of what you do not have.
Think of what you can do with that there is”
― Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea

The people I distrust most are those who want to improve our lives but have only one course of action.
- Frank Herbert
US science fiction novelist (1920 - 1986)

"Everyone you meet always asks if you have a career, are married or own a house as if life was some kind of grocery list. But nobody ever asks if you are happy."
Heath Ledger

You must not think me necessarily foolish because I am facetious,
nor will I consider you necessarily wise because you are grave.
- Sydney Smith
English essayist (1771 - 1845)

"I know now, that the love we hold back is the only pain that follows us here. And the memory of that love shouldn't make you unhappy for the rest of your life."
--from Always

The great enemy of clear language is insincerity.
When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims,
one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms,
like a cuttlefish spurting out ink.
- George Orwell, "Politics and the English Language", 1946
English essayist, novelist, & satirist (1903 - 1950)

The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.
- George Bernard Shaw