Flow is being completely involved in an activity for its own sake. The ego falls away. Time flies. Every action, movement, and thought follows inevitably from the previous one, like playing jazz. Your whole being is involved, and you're using your skills to the utmost.

The best moments in our lives are not the passive, receptive, relaxing times. The best moments usually occur if a person's body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile.

Control of consciousness determines the quality of life.

Of all the virtues we can learn no trait is more useful, more essential for survival, and more likely to improve the quality of life than the ability to transform adversity into an enjoyable challenge.

Exile is not an evil.

-- Gaius Musonius Rufus

Cato, while he lived, lived in such a way that he lacked nothing — so long as he was free to die.

-- Cato the Younger

What frees you from slavery is not wealth but needing nothing.

-- Crates of Thebes

If I were not Alexander, I would wish to be Diogenes.

-- Diogenes of Sinope

Stand a little out of my sunlight.

-- Diogenes of Sinope

In the northern darkness there is a fish called Kun. The Kun is so vast one cannot tell how many thousands of li it spans. It transforms into a bird called Peng. The back of the Peng is so vast one cannot tell how many thousands of li it spans.

-- Zhuang Zhou