PROGRESS
1. Wherever there is progress, there is infinite potential.
2. Waiting for perfection never brings progress, doing always does.
3. Inside, we don’t just love the world, we love the world for where we know we can take it.
4. Dissatisfaction with what we have today is the first step towards progress.
5. Progress of humanity requires leaving doors open for others to come to where we are after us.
6. In life you can either move forward or backward, progress is the habit of being conscious of it.
7. Whenever we’re on the wrong road, progress is actually making a U-turn.
8. Progress starts with change, which starts with the patience to change your mind.
9. Any progress of reason has to be unreasonable at first.
10. There is only one remedy to doubt: action.
11. Progress is not the product of chance, not a side effect of hope, but only the fruit of dedication.
12. Negativism is the voluntary obstruction of progress.
12. Progress is the art of knowing when to create, replace, simplify, improve or expand.
13. Progress is tomorrow’s confidence in today’s activity.
14. Progress is daring to go beyond where we were initially expected to.
15. There can be progress in both achievements and failed attempts, true success is in progress.
16. The best progress makes us work less eventually.
17. Discussion is not about proving right or wrong, it is about progressing together.
18. Progress comes from doing what we learnt but learning comes from progressing in what we do.
19. Progress might be talked about, sought after or dreamed about, eventually it simply has to be made real.
20. In the Middle Age, people were burnt for their ideas, a few centuries ago books were burnt for their content, and today the news is burnt for its monetary value.
21. Progress in the end should only be about one thing: an equal chance to live happy, free and on ideal standards for everyone.
22. There is no possible defeat to the pursuit of peace, because it is the reason why we’re alive.
23. The best progress grows unnoticed first, as we have to be able to change our thoughts before we change reality.
Photo courtesy of: “Never Enough”: By Giampaolo Sgura and Anna Dello Russo, Vogue Nippon, October 2010
Passion in 24 Short Thoughts
I wrote these thinking of the people who might not understand why some women and men work much harder than average, seemingly nowhere in appearance but inside, to somewhere outstanding in their heart. We should never be blamed for devoting ourselves to our true, core and most stimulating self. – OB. 
1. Of all the things you do, what you did with passion is what people will remember.
2. Passion starts with being true to what you do and ends with it being true to what you are.
3. Until you discover your own passions for life, you are living someone else’s.
4. Passion is like dancing on the music everyone hears but only few truly listen.
5. Passion is where you put your heart first, as you rose today.
6. Living every minute with passion is possible, it is living from our own sustainable energy.
7. Mastery in any art always starts with technique and but can only end with passion.
8. For all the things we set ourselves to live for, greatness comes from knowing that other people once died for them.
9. With passion and vision, the means always come, and without, never.
10. Some passions, like the passion for learning, are actually another way of defining wisdom.
11. Passion is like the passion in love, there would be nothing without it.
12. Thinking with passion is loving what you’re going to say, before you say it.
13. Resisting our passions is accepting their weaknesses.
14. All passions start in the dark side of us, where we are unsure yet.
15. Without facing our passions, there is no living them.
16. Whatever does not exist is simply something we have not desired enough yet.
17. The world always offers two choices: passion or an image of passion.
18. We achieve more for a passion than we do simply for a goal.
19. Passion is like our capital, we can choose to work towards building it.
20. Passion is always where our greatest potential is.
21. We can never think too much if we are truly passionate.
22. Dance the game of life, but learn to appreciate the music first.
23. There is no true listening, doing or creating, without genuine passion for it.
24. Passion is where duty and pleasure meet.
24bis. When creating with passion, we create both the fruit of our work and its impact.
Photo courtesy of: “Spanish Revival”: Jessica Stam for Harper’s Bazaar, August 2010
EXPLODING
1. Only weapons of mass CONSTRUCTION can build peace and positive empires.
2. One proverb can do more than an entire book if it is well-charged.
3. Intelligence is found the most in exploded systems, where there are no more boundaries to our forward thinking.
4. A dream repeated over and over again will implode into our heart and explode into our reality.
5. The best memories are the ones that explode inside us at the sight, smell or sound of a new discovery.
6. Finding a genius idea is a matter of maintaining the flame lit long enough for it to explode into one.
7. Acting with passion is a process of words exploded into action.
8. Love and passion are explosive forces which create a way where there was no way.
9. When you have seen war, you have seen madness outside the mind.
10. Every feeling starts with a little flame and ends with an explosion, learn to keep in only the best ones.
11. Explosion is sometimes a matter of delicacy: let the air explode into every breath, let the taste of food explode into every bite, let the love explode into every moment.
12. One can either be conventional, mad or creatively explosive.
13. Doing the extraordinary is a matter of going beyond the comfort of slow ordinary things to let great things explode into us.
14. Nothing beats the balance between moments of explosive success with moments of body relieving stillness.
15. Dreams always are a form of escape from stereotypes.
16. Nothing could be better for the world today than an explosion of love and happiness.
17. A good thought can explode faster than a full theory because it is instantaneously applicable.
18. Any explosion beyond reason is an explosion which should have been stopped at the first twinge of its original idea.
19. Learning to appreciate entire explosions of good is the full receptivity of the infinite value of the world.
20. Ironically, it requires a lot of patience in the moment to stand through the speed of an explosive idea.
21. Anything we have been seeking will end up exploding inside us once we find it.
22. At the origin of all, when nothing exploded, everything was created. Today when everything explodes, nothing is created. Mastering positive explosion is our reason to exist.
STRENGTH
1. Intelligence is awareness of the world around us, strength is its mastership.
2. Love is the wings of strength.
3. Without the fight of our demons, there is no singing of our angels.
4. Strength increases from revealing our spirit and weakens from concealing it.
5. Strength is the process of mastering our fears so well that they cannot weaken us anymore.
6. Strength is the only friend you need when everyone else has told you to give up.
7. Strength is an anticipation of the love we will receive. Courage is an estimation of the love we can give.
8. Strength is our ability to think with our heart and to act with the power that comes from it.
9. Strength is the power to choose what is right.
10. Strength is a spiritual vitality which brings an abundance of mental stability and physical tenacity.
11. At times strength comes from holding on, at others it comes from letting go.
12. Have the right determination, and your strength will take you to it.
13. Strength is the gift we were offered to conquer the path we were chosen to lead.
14. Strength is desiring success hard enough to be seeking it.
15. Confidence comes from achieving our goals but strength comes from getting on their path.
16. Standing alone for our dreams is optimal strength.
17. Strength beyond our will rises us beyond our dreams.
18. Happiness starts whenever we start seeking others’ joy.
19. Our strengths and weaknesses are the same capacities: one grows out of the other while we just direct the way.
20. Strength is merely embracing talents we already have.
21. The deeper you learn to stand inside yourself, the stronger it makes you.
22. Once we gain the victory over self, the world becomes a blessing.
23. Strength is only a means to one end: unbreakable perseverance.
Photo courtesy of: “The Great Illusion”: Lara Stone by Paolo Roversi
BELIEF
1. Being true to yourself is the art of only doing the things you can truly put your heart in.
2. Belief is the difference behind the impossible and the possible.
3. Belief is how we can start approaching the incredible.
4. We are nothing but the fruits of yesterday’s belief and the germs of tomorrow’s hope.
5. Believe in your reasons to, not others’.
6. Belief is walking with the ignorance of failure and the eloquence of success.
7. Without the irony of playing the game, there is no eligibility to seriously win it.
8. Belief requires no proof but disbelief ignores all.
9. The biggest barrier to what you want is your belief you can’t have it.
10. True love is already inside us, loving is learning to use it.
11. Our spirits are always home, we are the ones who run away.
12. Any talent starts with the talent to believe.
13. One life is one great chance to believe in it.
14. It is better to risk losing it all for belief than it is to miss winning it all for relief.
15. Wise belief is the belief that there isn’t only one truth in the world.
16. Living with belief is the cure to living in doubt.
17. Success is the fruit of hard work and miracles are the fruits of belief.
18. Faith is belief put into action.
19. Being an artist is knowing how difficult it is to be truthful.
20. Life is a quest from emptiness and loneliness to success and happiness, in any order.
21. Imagination speaks a thousand minds.
22. Belief is disbelief of the circumstances.
23. Inspiration is the marriage of our feelings and beliefs.
24. Belief might come without understanding, all understanding comes through belief.
Photo courtesy of: “Néo Belphégor”: Freja Beha Erichsen for Vogue Paris, September 2010
Unbreakable Unity
1. Standing without uniting is dividing.
2. Unity is human light: it illuminates anyone who encounters it.
3. Unity that doesn’t stand the stretches of time is hidden division.
4. Uniting is always a process of fixing natural differences.
5. Maturity is being real alone, unity is being real together.
6. Unity must pass only one test to subsist: the test of time.
7. One person might win the game, another might not, but they can both gain unity.
8. Unity starts inside our minds and ends in everyone’s.
9. Where there is no unity, there is only scarcity of good deeds.
10. Unity is the soil that makes the weeds of our dreams grow higher than they ever could alone.
11. Nations might unite their citizens, but there is nothing more important than the natural unity of our universe.
12. Unity is the wisdom to accept that we are all equal in spite of all distances, circumstances or differences.
13. Until there is peace and until there is equal opportunity for everyone, there is a need for unity in the world.
14. If everyone’s goal was only to seek unity with all people, we would fight at once all misery, war and atrocities.
15. A branch that becomes too long on its own dies off, only a branch which grounds itself from the tree-trunk grows tall, because it grows in harmony with its origins.
16. Unity is the will to become a good weed in the diversity of choices our nature offers.
17. Diversity is the blessing of life, generosity is its gift and unity is its potential.
18. If you just dream, you are a romantic, if you just wish you are a hopeful, but if you act you are a creator of unity.
19. Supporting the wrong cause is not unity, it is a grouped escape from it.
20. We reached our freedom through unity and we stay united thanks to our freedom.
21. Respecting the man who fights for unity, be it at the opposite side of the world, is already unity.
22. Unity is the mastery of both love and respect.
23. Maturity is the consistency of our actions towards ourselves, unity is the maturity of our actions towards others.
24. Unity starts with idealistic progress and ends with realistic peace.
Photo credit: Miu Miu Fall/Winter 2010 Campaign
The Practice Magic
1. A truly inspiring performance comes from the practice of a lifetime.
2. Daily practice is the only secret to full mastery.
3. Practicing is winning, in advance.
4. Practice is pro-active success.
5. How much time you put into your practice is not that important compared to how much heart you put into any of it.
6. Practice is the best mentor you could ever have.
7. Everything can be achieved through practice, especially kindness and generosity.
8. With practice, everything simply becomes truly possible.
9. With practice, anything can be made into the most beautiful thing on earth.
10. True practice is performing as you would for a million people, but with no one around.
11. Practice is repetition of a performance until it is not practice anymore, but an inspiring display of the magic of human nature.
12. Practice is like exploration: overcoming all obstacles to find yourself along the way, somewhere you didn’t even know could exist.
13. We learn by practice, so we can only discover our success and never fully predict it.
14. Practice is the exploration of our own excellence, one discovery at a time.
15. Life is the practice of loving, over and over again.
16. Living is a form of art that can only be mastered through the practice of virtues.
17. A talent is a gift made to us that we can only benefit from through practice.
18. Practicing is the art of transforming your greatest weaknesses into what you do best.
19. Practice excitement to practice and you will earn the greatest possible focus.
20. Practice your imperfections and you might not reach perfection, but you will reach excellence.
21. Preserving the environment is more than an individual achievement, it is our civilisation’s practice of being self sustainable.
22. Practice only makes perfect with confidence in perfection.
23. Practice is the preaching of our own body through doing.
24. Practice is the quest of our own best performance.
Picture credit: Matisse: Radical Invention at the Museum of Modern Art through October 11th
Principles of Kindness
Although most of us agree that the principle of kindness is a good thing, the actual living quality is often under appreciated in life. We have all bumped into a boss, colleague or even a member of the public who is remarkably unkind, or at least thoughtless. It is interesting that Aldous Huxley, the formidably intelligent British novelist wrote towards the end of his life, “It is a bit embarrassing to have been concerned with the human problem all one’s life and find at the end that one has no more to offer by way of advice than ‘try to be a little kinder’.”
The good thing about this lesson is that it is remarkably uncomplicated. We don’t have to be particularly brilliant or excel in any field to give our brothers and sisters a break. Of course kindness is easier to display in some areas of life – we’re going to find it hard to show kindness when we’re playing partypoker or competing in a sport – however, we all know when kindness is called for and will feel better for it. Kindness is where it’s at, as the Dalai Lama said “My religion is very simple. My religion is kindness.” Dig it!
1. Love is loving the differences more than the similarities.
2. Knowing one person has lived better because you were there is true success.
3. Kindness is the only opportunity every moment gives you.
4. Letting people come to you to leave better and happier probably is the worthiest goal of all existence, and of all activity.
5. Kindness is the only true universal language.
6. Being kind to a close friend or to a complete stranger is still being kind.
7. Unkind people might not have kindness, they need it the most.
8. Forget hate and injuries, but never forget love and kindness.
9. Kindness does not develop itself in weak submissions to others but in strong resolutions to be there for them.
10. A kind word seems nothing before it is stated, comes as a relief when spoken and becomes everything when shared.
11. Kindness is not a resolution of our brain, it is an art of our heart.
12. Kindness is a will to grow beyond all differences.
13. Good feelings cannot stagnate, they can only grow.
14. Being kind to those who are there is a nice gesture, being kind to those who aren’t even more so.
15. The cost of a kind gesture to you multiplies its effect on others.
16. Kindness is one of the things which can always be given in excess.
17. Kindness is maturity of the heart.
18. Success without kindness is excess.
19. Lose kindness and you will lose people.
20. Kindness is always guaranteed to be two things: appealing and infectious.
21. Kindness is energy from the heart.
22. Kindness is our heart’s culture.
23. Kindness is possible even against our own will.
24. Kindness is like wisdom, it can never be wrong.
Photo Credit: SQUA.RE Guide, Live With Chivalry
The Creative Habit
1. People wait for inspiration to create, but they should use their talent and goodwill to create in order to find inspiration.
2. Creativity is the only difference between leading and following.
3. The solution always requires more thinking than the problem.
4. Imagination is the menu of creativity’s will.
5. Only through freedom can our true self come out.
6. In order to be creative, one has to be critical.
7. Nothing great can be created by chance.
8. Art is specifically organized, highly elegant and truly original creativity.
9. Creativity is the raw courage of soul.
10. The creative person is both more instinctive and more literate than the average person.
11. A teaching that makes you inventive is education, a teaching that doesn’t is brain washing.
12. Making what is simple more complicated is accessible to all, making what is complicated simpler is exceptional art.
13. Everything in the universe begins in darkness and has the potential to end in complete enlightenment.
14. There is no creativity without trust in our own instincts.
15. Creativity comes easiest when not thinking and just doing.
16. Every act of creation is an act of freedom.
17. Creativity is analyzing what others ignore.
18. Style is looking different, creativity is looking differently.
19. The best creativity happens when we look at what everyone’s looking in our own unique way.
20. Beauty is the perfect diversity in a look, creativity is the perfect diversity in a thought.
21. True art always breaks the rules and never breaks the senses.
22. Creativity is the gift of life to emptiness, of light to darkness and of sense to madness.
23. Creativity is love of the unloved.
Photo credit: MUMM Explorer Experience with Olivier Bassil / SQUA.RE, Mike Horn and Alain Passard. Full story here.
Aspire to Inspire
1. Creativity is an exploration, and inspiration is the discoveries we make through it.
2. The moment we really need courage is when it is the tough and discreet option while cowardice is the easy and visible one.
3. There are no failures, only the wrong reactions to missed outputs.
4. Giving up is easy at first and increasingly difficult to live with, persistence is hard at first and increasingly easy to live by.
5. Persistence is effort made habit.
6. Take the time to bring out the best in everything so all you have to lose can only be worse.
7. Inspiration is the effort to look further, lack of it is the habit not to.
8. Leadership is living inspiration, art is living and spreading it, to be an artist one must be a leader.
9. Inspiration is simply looking at stars the way they deserve it.
10. Inspiration can happen night and day, at times looking with our eyes closed, at times it is dreaming with our eyes opened.
11. Without courage, there is no inspiration, inspiration is the courage to cross the ocean to see the next shore.
12. Inspiration is the voice that starts speaking to our heart when we have the courage to only do what is right.
13. Inspiration is falling in love with ideas.
14. You can only inspire others to do the things you truly aspire for.
15. Giving your smile to someone who needs it: this is where giving inspiration starts.
16. Doing the impossible can either be seen as an absurdity or as an inspiration.
17. Don’t regret your experiences, because they are everything we lived and they are the alternative to nothing else.
18. Success is a gift to the open mind.
19. The lessons to our success are the journey to our destination.
20. Embracing everyone truly is believing in serendipity, which is their reason for being there.
21. Inspiration is not what triggers action, commitment is and inspiration is their reward.
22. Intuition is a combination of the thousand paths we dreamt of.
23. Love as if you’ll leave tomorrow, commit as if you’ll be there forever.
24. Inspiration comes little by little, but if we believe every step, it can take us far beyond where we thought we could go.
Photo credit: MUMM Explorer Experience with Olivier Bassil / SQUA.RE, Mike Horn and Alain Passard. Full story here.
The Power of Doing
1. Achieving is finishing what doing has not explored yet.
2. We must all become great at translating our thoughts into actions.
3. Doing is always urgent, because not doing would be a waste of ourselves.
4. Waiting for the right time can also become not doing.
5. Fear develops in thoughts and goes away in actions.
6. Don’t worry about what people think, worry about what you make them feel.
7. Believing and acting are similar, they both need confidence.
8. It’s only once we act that our action’s true potential arises.
9. Do what will help the world change, and don’t do what will not.
10. There always is a way to dream bigger, it starts with taking action.
11. We own our actions, and we inherit their consequences.
12. Creativity is not a talent, it is a habit that can be yours the day you make it your own.
13. Where there is progress, there is infinite potential.
14. Words are tools and actions are their end goals.
15. Shoot, you may reach your goals, or you may just be lucky, but shoot.
16. The greatest feelings transform themselves into the most inspiring actions.
17. Man can judge actions, but only God can judge intentions.
18. Motion is nothing without the right action, emotions are nothing without the right thoughts.
19. Thoughts divide us, action unites us, dreams ignite us.
20. Nothing works without our mastery.
21. Everything was initially built by people who could not do it first.
22. Greatness is modest speech and exceptional action.
23. Action ends the worries theory begins.
24. Everyone plans to do great things but only great people act upon all things.
Photo credit: MUMM Explorer Experience with Olivier Bassil / SQUA.RE, Mike Horn and Alain Passard. Full story here.
On the Road to Joy
1. Spreading joy is multiplying it.
2. Joy is an exploration of good feelings.
3. Joy is the flower of good life’s seeds.
4. Building joy from others’ good fortune is our heart’s wealth.
5. Joy overcomes all possible griefs.
6. Joy is fitness of the heart.
7. On the same path, we bring either joy or sorrow.
8. Do what you love, so others can love it too.
9. Joy comes from proof of its reason to be: your potential.
10. Somewhere deep with your eyes closed, there is a path to your joy.
11. Joy is like cosmetics, it improves beauty.
12. Pleasure can be selfish, but genuine joy never is.
13. Before healing ourselves, we have to heal others, that is our human condition.
14. Pick a worthy destination, because the longer the journey, the longer the joy.
15. Happiness is drawn from reason, sometimes, while joy is drawn from our hearts, all the time.
Finding the Spirit of Beauty
We all are in the pursuit of beauty, through our work, our life and our actions, and this is the worthiest cause of all. Below is an attempt to find out how.
Beauty in our Natural Self
1. Beauty is the smile of nature.
2. The question is not “who are we to be so great” it is “who are we not to be great.”
3. Beauty is diversity completing itself in a compelling and powerful way.
The Pursuit of Beauty
4. Beauty is a good reason to exist.
5. Being in the pursuit of beauty will never be a lost cause.
6. Virtue is beauty of the soul, genius is beauty of the mind, love is beauty of the heart.
7. For everyone beauty is an inspiration, but for some beauty is an aspiration.
The Creation of Beauty
8. Virtue is the natural scent of beauty, vanity is its artificial perfume.
9. Inspiration is the zeal to go for the unknown.
10. Beauty consumed instantly is perennial, beauty found little by little is eternal.
11. Beauty holds no secrets, but a well-preserved secret can hold great beauty.
12. Beauty is the art of hope and surprise.
Freedom Thoughts
1. Security is often the alternative to freedom.
2. No one will really be free when other people are suffering.
3. Liberty is our imagination’s wealth.
4. Freedom is at the foundation of our society, but it is hierarchical.
5. Freedom is a chance to be better than just following our easiest path.
6. Freedom is the risk to do something wrong and the opportunity to do something right.
7. Without suffering from the lack of it, we would not appreciate freedom.
8. Creativity is freedom of the mind.
9. Being free in our times is being a rebel.
10. We are free to choose our actions, but we can only predict their consequences.
Love Thoughts
1. Everything is better with love.
2. If you fight enough for what you love, even time will help you have it.
3. Love can hurt, but to a much greater degree, love can heal.
4. Love is the good side of madness.
5. It is better not to be loved, than to be loved for who you are not.
6. What you love is a path to who you are.
7. Love is a four letter word that is often used, but rarely truly meant.
8. It is better to do small things with great love than big ones without.
9. Eyes, ears or lips can forget, but never hearts. Never forget a friend, never forget love.
10. Love is not who she is, it’s who I am with her, who we are together.
11. It is always better to lose your pride for love than to lose your love for pride.
12. Love is easy to talk about but much harder to act upon.
