In 2009, I started collecting interesting quotes into a word file.
I’d always liked quotations. Before having place to keep them, I’d write them in notebooks, among class outlines and on 3×5 cards which I’d then tape my mirror in high school; my “quote” board.
Let it be known I didn’t go to business school for nothin’. Lolz.
To simplify and help catalogue the quotes, I divided each file by the year it was added. The first year of keeping track, the document took up a single page. Nearing the end of business school in 2014 and 2015, each year spanned dozens of pages.
So now, over a decade later I have a repository of insightful, clever and interesting quotations drawn from thousands of years of human history.
The master document also takes up over 300 pages now.
In 2020, one of my pandemic projects was to organize my master quotes list into subject matter. I don’t know why this one ended up on my list of goals for the year because it was a son-of-a-bitch to get through. This was also before I realized I had several hundred pages worth of quotes.
Little by little, a little becomes a lot I guess.
It ended up being of great benefit. As I reread great and noble thoughts, I was reminded of the accumulated wisdom of humanity, and the fact that it was acquired at great cost.
We live in an age of wonders.
Because today, I can pull up a digital document filled with quips from some of the strongest minds in history at a moment’s notice.
And then it’s on me to learn from them.
What a world. What a life.
Don't Like It? Get Better 