Man is his own star; and the soul that can
Render an honest and a perfect man,
Commands all light, all influence, all fate;
Nothing to him falls early or too late.
Our acts our angels are, or good or ill,
Our fatal shadows that walk by us still.
— Epilogue to Beaumont and Fletcher’s Honest Man’s Fortune
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01.01.2008 Tuesday
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明月幾時有？
把酒問青天。
不知天上宮闕，
今夕是何年？
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我欲乘風歸去，
唯恐瓊樓玉宇，
高處不勝寒。
起舞弄清影，
何似在人間！
轉朱閣，
低綺戶，
照無眠。
不應有恨，
何事長向別時圓？
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人有悲歡離合，
月有陰晴圓缺，
此事古難全。
但願人長久，
千里共嬋娟。
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New Year Eve 2007,
Think beyond your lifetime, if you want to do something truly great. Make a fifty-year master plan. A fifty-year master plan will change how you look at the opportunities in the present.
— Walt Disney
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2007.12.18 Tuesday
When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: “If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.” It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?” And whenever the answer has been “No” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.
— Steven Jobs:
Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.
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2007.12.09 Sunday
Like all great travellers…
I have seen more than I remember, and remember more than I have seen.
— Benjamin Disraeli
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2007.11.17 Saturday CHK2
Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.
— Helen Keller
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2007.11.16 Friday CHK2
When you are inspired by some great purpose, some extraordinary project, all your thoughts break their bonds: Your mind transcends limitations, your consciousness expands in every direction, and you find yourself in a new, great, and wonderful world. Dormant forces, faculties and talents become alive, and your discover yourself to be a greater person by far than you ever dreamed yourself to be.
— Yoga Sutras of Patanjali
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2007.11.10 Saturday CHK2
BILL MOYERS: Do you ever have the sense of… being helped by hidden hands?
JOSEPH CAMPBELL: All the time. It is miraculous. I even have a superstition that has grown on me as a result of invisible hands coming all the time – namely, that if you do follow your bliss you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. When you can see that, you begin to meet people who are in your field of bliss, and they open doors to you. I say, follow your bliss and don’t be afraid, and doors will open where you didn’t know they were going to be.
My general formula for my students is “Follow your bliss.” Find where it is, and don’t be afraid to follow it.
— Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth, pp. 120, 149
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2007.11.07 Wednesday CHK2
To be great is to be misunderstood.
— Emerson
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2007.10.22 Monday CHK2
人活得長，歷練凝固成金石良言。他叫人要博學：「誰也不知道，你所學的將來發展是否有用，所以盡量要多學。」
他主張背書，學問一定要熟得不得了：「一定要閉了眼晴一看，情況都看得見，你才能有希望在這方面有重要的貢獻。」
他叫人練好招式，才能把握運氣：「科學的發展，有如波浪，有高有低，當它在頂點時，你就能跨上去，但要先得練幾套拳、幾套劍。」
「你花全部時間在數學，都只能知道一點皮毛。」我記得，這是訪問的最後一句話。
— 區家麟 2004-12-08 00:51:59
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2007.10.15 Monday CHK2
Sir Michael Atiyah said of Witten,
“Although he is definitely a physicist (as his list of publications clearly shows) his command of mathematics is rivalled by few mathematicians, and his ability to interpret physical ideas in mathematical form is quite unique. Time and again he has surprised the mathematical community by his brilliant application of physical insight leading to new and deep mathematical theorems… he has made a profound impact on contemporary mathematics. In his hands physics is once again providing a rich source of inspiration and insight in mathematics. ”
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2007.10.13 Saturday CHK2
You cannot teach a man anything, you can only help him to find it for himself.
— Galileo Galilei
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2007.10.01 Monday CHK2
Sound Sound Slow
尋尋覓覓
冷冷清清
淒淒慘慘戚戚
— 李清照
I look for what I miss,
I know not what it is,
I feel so sad, so drear,
So lonely without cheer.
— 許淵衝先生
So dim, so dark,
So dense, so dull,
So damp, so dank, so dead.
— 林語堂先生
Searching searching
Cold cold clear clear
Poor poor sad sad … …
— Me
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2007.09.25 Tuesday (c) CHK2
陳達明
September 2005 – August 2007
君已死 請忘記
2007.08.26, Sunday, CHK2
Wikipedia:
在倫理學上，斯賓諾莎認為，一個人只要受制於外在的影響，他就是處於奴役狀態，而只要和上帝達成一致，人們就不再受制於這種影響，而能獲得相對的自由，也因此擺脫恐懼。
斯賓諾莎還主張無知是一切罪惡的根源。
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Wikipedia:
斯賓諾莎還認為上帝是每件事的「內在因」，上帝通過自然法則來主宰世界，所以物質世界中發生的每一件事都有其必然性；世界上只有上帝是擁有完全自由的，而人雖可以試圖去除外在的束縛，卻永遠無法獲得自由意志。如果我們能夠將事情看作是必然的，那麼我們就愈容易與上帝合為一體。因此，斯賓諾莎提出我們應該「在永恆的相下」（sub specie aeternitatis）看事情。
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Russell’s History of Western Philosophy, on Spinoza:
Only ignorance makes us think that we can alter the future;
what will be will be,
and the future is as unalterably fixed as the past.
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2007.07.05 CHK2
will become a young old man.
— Benjamin Franklin
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2007.07.01 CHK2
究天人之際 通古今之變 成一家之言
–司馬遷
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24.06.2007 CHK2
Mara: “You who go where others dare not; Will you be my God? The architect of my house?”
Siddharta: “Finally I meet the illusion of self; Your evil house will not be built again.”
Mara: “But you live in me; I am your house.”
Siddharta: “O, trickster; phantom of my own ego, you are pure illusion. You, self, do not exist. The earth is my witness to this Supreme Enlightenment.”
— Wikipedia
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2007.06.20 CHK2
新亞書院學規
一個活的完整的人，應該具有多方面的智識；但多方面的智識，不能成為一個的完整的人。你須在尋求智識中，來完成你自己的人格；你莫忘失了自己的人格，來專為智識而求智識。
— 錢穆
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2007.06.16 CHK2
Men are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own minds.
— Roosevelt
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2007.04.12 CHK2
Physics Town 
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