What book have you read had such a great philosophy, that it changed your outlook on life? Quotes are appreciated, but not necessary.

ximan

Siddhartha by Herman Hesse.

This book singlehandedly ended my depression and existential crisis.

precip

The Little Engine That Could definitely changed my life when I was five.

azraelb

I read 1984 not long ago, and was amazed at how poignant it still is. It's certainly made me sit up and look around us, and the age we live in. We are without doubt the most highly scrutinised, observed, and spied upon generation and it's in thanks in no small part to our beloved internet. Ideas that Orwell touched upon in 1984 have become solid facts in these last years, and terms he coined have become part of our everyday vocabulary...

Truly, one of the few (if not the only) books that has changed my perception of the world I live in.

dudeism

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

Mostly for this quote:

"One of the things Ford Prefect had always found hardest to understand about humans was their habit of continually stating and repeating the very very obvious, as in It's a nice day, or You're very tall, or Oh dear you seem to have fallen down a thirty-foot well, are you alright? At first Ford had formed a theory to account for this strange behaviour. If human beings don't keep exercising their lips, he thought, their mouths probably seize up. After a few months' consideration and observation he abandoned this theory in favour of a new one. If they don't keep on exercising their lips, he thought, their brains start working. After a while he abandoned this one as well as being obstructively cynical."

Ever since I read that I've found myself making sure that the sentence that is about to come out of my mouth actually serves a purpose.

prolix

Beyond Good and Evil by Friedrich Nietzsche

girlpriest

Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl had a big impact on my life. The book deals a lot with suffering, especially suffering that is perceived as senseless. Frankl's philosophy was developed in large part during his experiences in the Holocaust.

"The last of human freedoms - the ability to chose one's attitude in a given set of circumstances."

makrotonik

Pale Blue Dot - Carl Sagan.

"There is perhaps no better a demonstration of the folly of human conceits...than this distant image of our tiny world...To say nothing of the folly of wars, which from space would appear to be little more than the squabbles of mites on a plum."

rotll

The Foundation Series by Asimov.

ezrock

Ishmael, by Daniel Quinn

phrees

Tao Teh Ching by Lao Tse

http://books.google.com/books?ei=_pMAS9uyEZD-sgOJ1eGHCw&ct=result&q=tao+teh+ching&as_brr=1&hl=en

I've read several translations and understood little, but that's the idea (I think).

Quotes that have stuck with me include:

"The Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao."

"With the greatest leaders, when the work is done, the people say, 'We did it ourselves'".

"Teaching without words and work without doing is understood by few."

"Twelve spokes surround the wheel, but the hole in its centre gives it function."

Those are remembered, rather than exact, quotations and I'm not sure which translations they come from.

jacktorse

could probably list 5, but here is top:

stranger in a strange land

arrgh406

slaughterhouse five. basically, once you realize that all that is going to happen is inevitable, you have no reason to be stressed about anything

phrees

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig.

"Quality is what you like."

"When one person suffers from a delusion, it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion it is called a Religion."

"'Is it hard?' 'Not if you have the right attitudes. Its having the right attitudes thats hard.'"

More quotes here:

http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/401.Robert_M_Pirsig

secretstevie

Ishmael

The_Gopher

I'm surprised nobody's said The Stranger yet, I read it at a very crucial point in my adolescence, and it helped with a few problems I had tremendously.

iammyownrushmore

Thus Spake Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche

Read it before you die.

humpcunian

Gödel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter

robot_nixon

"Going Rogue" by Sarah Palin. It taught me how to be a real American patriot.

lnava

I am currently reading The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. I am only 1/3 of the way through it, but I have so far found it to be extremely insightful to the human condition. This book covers many different philosophies, and gives reasoning behind them. Plus, Einstein and Freud thought it was the pinnacle of literary achievements.

Kilgore_Trout

Ray Bradbury, Kurt Vonnegut.. read any of their books, any at all will do. I've read everything both of them wrote and it did something somewhere along the line.

The gist I came away with - You'll be dead soon. Have some fun. Be decent to the people you meet.

Hard to argue with.

theneilcave

Kurt Vonnegut- God Bless You Mr. Rosewater

“Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It’s hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It’s round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you’ve got about a hundred years here. There’s only one rule that I know of, babies — ‘God damn it, you’ve got to be kind.”

wockyman

If we're talking fiction, Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse and Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut probably affected my philosophy most. Although Neil Stephenson and Peter Dickinson are my favorite authors over-all.

As for non-fiction, Postmodern Magic by Patrick Dunn, The Moral Animal by Robert Wright, and Longing for the Harmonies by Frank Wilczek rank pretty high for me.

Edit: Heh, looks like ximan beat me to it on Siddhartha. It really is a fantastic book. I need to read it again.

ArturoBadfinger

The Prince by Machiavelli. The man nails the nature and application of power in a book that's basically as long as a novella.

It's concise, well written and in my opinion brilliant and has really informed my thinking over the years.

MikFia

"Every day all people judge all other people. The question is whether we judge wisely" --- Xenocide

Ironic because the author of the book is a homophobe.

selectrix

The Red Queen, by Matt Ridley. Human existence-our habits, idiosyncrasies, even our philosophies, all make so much more sense when viewed from the proper historical and biological perspecitve.

agbortol

Not one person has mentioned Asimov's short story "The Last Question"!

"And it came to pass that AC learned how to reverse the direction of entropy. But there was now no man to whom AC might give the answer of the last question. No matter. The answer -- by demonstration -- would take care of that, too."

This saved me from the self-important and foolish certainty of the new Atheists and returned me to a humble and awestruck appreciation for the universe.

lacenaire

Anything by Nietzsche. Of all his ideas, I find his concept of ressentiment to be the most fascinating. The thing I like most about it is that it makes hatred seem like something petty and base, not to mention counter-productive. Ordinarily, people are inclined to feel almost exalted because of their hatred, as if their hatred places them above those they hate. But the reality is they hate what they find threatening, and construct a self-justifying value system around their hatred. Although this may seem logical enough, it can be counter-productive because it forestalls thinking of creative solutions to your problems in favor of wallowing in ressentiment.

There's a passage from On the Genealogy of Morality which stuck with me: "To be incapable of taking one's enemies, one's accidents, even one's misdeeds seriously for very long -- that is the sign of strong, full natures in whom there is an excess of the power to form, to mold, to recuperate and to forget. (A good example of this in the modern times is Mirabeau, who had no memory for insults and vile actions done to him and was unable to forgive simply because he -- forgot.) Such a man shakes off with a single shrug many vermin that eat deep into others; here alone genuine 'love for one's enemies' is possible -- supposing it to be possible at all on this earth. How much reverence has the noble man for his enemies! -- and such reverence is a bridge to love. For he desires his enemy for himself, as a mark of distinction; he can endure no other enemy than the one in whom there is nothing to desire and very much to honor!"

Infinity_Wasted

this might not "count" in the same way that it does for you guys, but in my Old EnglishAnglo-Saxon and my Ancient History course, I had to read several original essaysmanuscriptspamphlets. it was interesting because... nothing has changed.

in Anglo-Saxon, I can remember reading several letters from the 10th, 11th, and 12th centuries that were about the same things we worry about: one was a parent writing to his son about how his college life is sinful and he needs to repent; another was a student & brother writing to his parents for money to continue their studies; one was a young man who had recently traveled to FranceGaul, and was desperately dreaming of the future; another was a priest, writing to a friend about his doubts in the goodness of the Christian God after studying the Bible.

in Ancient History, it was much the same, but what hit me most was a letter by an Alexandrian citizen, around -300 to -200, who was complaining about all the new churches who were misleading people, about how he placed his reason in the goodness and the talent of gifted, intelligent people, and mostly: about how, through his studies, he's realized that nothing is changing compared to the last century and how depressed that makes him feel.

sorry for the length, but it blew my mind away in elementary school that people worried about the same things I did (or would worry about later), even though they had lived a thousand or two-thousand years before me.

overexplainer

The Sirens of Titan, by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

This book is deceptively poignant. What begins as a pratfall story ends in a flourish of genuine perspective. This book delivers a message on humanity, the legitimacy of culture, the quality of an individual, and our tininess in the vast universe.

Vonnegut is the unsung hero of societal commentary.

denisdiderot

1984, not for detailed parallels with the modern world (even though some exist) but rather for presenting the idea of repression by perpetual conflict. That the means really are the ends.

Galapagos by Vonnegut. Can't say it made me happier, rather than 1984, but it altered my view on human reality.

Since someone mentioned it I'm reminded of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Mostly for one quote: "Space is big". I have a scheme of our galactic supercluster as desktop background to remind me daily. Somehow it just doesn't cut it, though.

A Mathematician's Apology by G. H. Hardy also had some long-term effect on my point of view. I admit I gave a small sigh of relief when I first heard a mathematician shun Hardy's stance.

DrRedditMD

The Art of Happiness. This book was written by a guy interviewing the Dalai Lama. The book is basically exploring what it truly is to be happy and what are the keys to lasting happiness. The book is good at giving examples and practical steps to achieve happiness in your life. I was never the same after reading it and really taking its lessons to heart. I have never felt the same kind of sadness after reading this book and have been able to find happiness and contentment in my life ever since even when struggling through adversity. Strongly recommend for everyone to enrich your life.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Art_of_Happiness

wu-wei

Early Carlos Castaneda. I read them at a fairly young age and they taught me to strive for impeccability, and the concept of the Petty Tyrant -- seeing annoying, frustrating things and people as mechanisms for self-improvement. Those books also reinforced a life-long interest in psychedelics and alternate states of mind, which is a whole 'nother story...

kleinbl00

The Joke by Milan Kundera.

sarmad11

Atlas Shrugged/Fountainhead

You don't have to agree with anything in it or the feasibility of the plot, but the protagonists in both books are people to be admired. It's difficult for me not to read the book and feel moved to do more in life. Not the most inspiring quote from the book, but a personal favorite...

"You seek escape from pain. We seek the achievement of happiness. You exist for the sake of avoiding punishment. We exist for the sake of earning rewards. Threats will not make us function; fear is not our incentive. It is not death that we wish to avoid, but life that we wish to live."

manwith2brinez

Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis.

Until I read it I thought Christianity was not compatible with logic. I had to grudgingly concede his points.

MacAssPat

The Great Gatsby, yes it may seem cliche but it helped me sort out what I wanted from life, this quote always stuck with me.

"They are a rotten crowd," I shouted across the lawn. "You're worth the whole damn bunch put together." I've always been glad I said that. It was the only compliment I ever gave him, because I disapproved of him from beginning to end. First he nodded politely, and then his face broke into that radiant and understanding smile, as if we'd been in ecstatic cahoots on that fact all the time."

harrenga

Time Enough for Love by Robert Heinlein

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Enough_for_Love

"Store your beer in a cool dark place."

"Anyone who cannot cope with mathematics is not fully human. At best he is a tolerable subhuman who has learned to wear shoes, bathe, and not make messes in the house."

"Never try to teach a pig to sing- it wastes your time and annoys the pig."

Also this...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunnel_in_the_Sky

Reso

The Conquest of Happiness by Bertrand Russell. I found so much of myself in that book, it was a large part in resolving a year-long existential crisis I had a while ago.

My purpose is to suggest a cure for the day to day unhappiness from which most people in civilized countries suffer, and which is all the more unbearable because, having no obvious external cause, it appears inescapable.

It's also occasionally hilarious and very enjoyable to read.

psyyduck

"You see this goblet?" asks Achaan Chaa, the Thai meditation master.

"For me this glass is already broken. I enjoy it; I drink out of it. It holds my water admirably, sometimes even reflecting the sun in beautiful patterns. If I should tap it, it has a lovely ring to it. But when I put this glass on the shelf and the wind knocks it over or my elbow brushes it off the table and it falls to the ground and shatters, I say, ‘Of course.’

When I understand that the glass is already broken, every moment with it is precious."

jesusfapped

The Cosmic Trigger by Robert Anton Wilson. Get it. Read it. Live it.

awkwardfigurine

The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka

""Those had been wonderful times, and they had never returned, at least not with the same glory..."

That part never leaves my mind.

notreal1234

Plato's Republic.

DeepGreen

The Historical Illuminatus Chronicles reinforced my intention to become a Mason, and it additionally had me meditate very deeply on the nature of the human mind and the role of the individual within society.

Not only that it was a romping fun read. Sword fights, scandal, secret societies, and more.

smalrebelion

After searching this entire series of posts I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned:

“The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars...” -Jack Kerouac "On the Road"

"One minute was enough, Tyler said, a person had to work hard for it, but a minute of perfection was worth the effort. A moment was the most you could ever expect from perfection." -Chuck Palahniuk "Fight Club"

"Life is fury, he'd thought. Fury — sexual, Oedipal, political, magical, brutal — drives us to our finest heights and coarsest depths. Out of furia comes creation, inspiration, originality, passion, but also violence, pain, pure unafraid destruction, the giving and receiving of blows from which we never recover... This is what we are, what we civilize ourselves to disguise — the terrifying human animal in us, the exalted, transcendent, self-destructive, untramelled lord of creation." -Salman Rushdie "Fury"

"Take what you want... and then pay for it." -Frank Herbert "Heretics of Dune"

"...it's the truth even if it didn't happen." -Ken Kesey "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest"

Oh and just about anything from The Autobiography of Malcolm X.

KanyeWestside

"As long as a man feels that he is the most important thing in the world, he cannot really appreciate the world around him. He is like a horse with blinders; all he sees is himself, apart from everything else."

-Journey to Ixtlan

FarQueue

Australian Playboy - January 1984.

nogoodnoevil

Tuesdays With Morrie

JacksSmirkingRevenge

Zorba the Greek by Nikos Kazantzakis with its gems like:

"Am I not a man? And is not a man stupid? I’m a man. So I married. Wife, children, house, everything. The full catastrophe."

sundance1992

Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger. "And don't you know — listen to me, now — don't you know who that Fat Lady really is? . . . Ah, buddy. Ah, buddy. It's Christ Himself. Christ Himself, buddy."

cocoon001

Still Life with Woodpecker by Tom Robbins.

"“Love is the ultimate outlaw. It just won't adhere to any rules. The most any of us can do is to sign on as its accomplice. Instead of vowing to honor and obey, maybe we should swear to aid and abet. That would mean that security is out of the question. The words "make" and "stay" become inappropriate. My love for you has no strings attached. I love you for free.”"

TheBeerNinja

Illusions (Richard Bach)

Here is a test to find whether your mission on earth is finished: If you're alive, it isn't.

mshaver

Walden by Henry David Thoreau

Mnementh2230

"Sword of Truth" series by Terry Goodkind

ConradStargard

"A wise man could not be insulted, since truth could not insult and untruth was not worthy of notice." – Robert A. Heinlein – Citizen of the Galaxy

Enigmocracy

Society of the Spectacle - Guy Debord

The Conquest of Bread - Peter Kropotkin

In Defense of Lost Causes - Slavoj Zizek

alcaponeben

Disregard females, acquire currency.

I read it in some book by Joseph Ducreux

docimpossible

The hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy

truco

Breakfast of Champions

"Our awareness is all that is alive and maybe even sacred in any of us. Everything else is dead machinery"

It made me look at the world objectively and ended my existential angst.

timbrewolf

The Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu is, to me, perfectly distilled wisdom. A kind of postmodern (yet... pre-modern?) religion that forgoes any kind of mythology or dogma in favor of a naked critique of the human brand of living. It is the only school of thought I have come across that does away with all hope of ever answering the mystery of the universe, but rather embraces the unknowable as a humbling reference point, drawing a border around the outskirts of human awareness and sending us back to our forgotten heartland, where an animal intuition for harmonious living still resides.

PurpleDingo

Another Roadside Attraction by Tom Robbins.

Not too long ago I would have said a Vonnegut book (either Cat's Cradle or, more likely, Breakfast of Champions) but Another Roadside Attraction draws on both and expands to encompass a much larger piece of the human condition. Not only that, but I've never before seen all the negative underpinnings of western literature (stuffy monologues, clearly symbolic characters masquerading as realistic characters and a propensity to relate the most insignificant of details at great length) reappropriated so brilliantly. It's also a very mature argument in favor of anti-authoritariansim, which means it should be a recommended read for every redditor. Also, I think I laughed out loud at nearly every page, for one reason or another.

“In order to be respected, authority has got to be respectable.”

butterscotchcowgirl

Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale. "The crimes of others are a secret language among us. Through them we show ourselves what we might be capable of, after all. This is not a popular announcement." and "She doesn't make speeches anymore. She has become speechless. She stays in her home, but it doesn't seem to agree with her. How furious she must be now that she has been taken at her word."

also

William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying "Sometimes I aint so sho who's got ere a right to say when a man is crazy and when he aint. Sometimes I think it aint none of us pure crazy and aint none of us pure sane until the balance of us talks him that-a-way. It's like it aint so much what a fellow does, but it's the way the majority of folks is looking at him when he does it." and "That was when I learned that words are no good; that words dont ever fit even what they are trying to say at. When he was born I knew that motherhood was invented by someone who had to have a word for it because the ones that had the children didn't care whether there was a word for it or not. I knew that fear was invented by someone that had never had the fear; pride, who never had the pride."

darwin2500

Goedel, Escher, Bach. I read it in middle school so I didn't understand half of it and can't remember most of it now, but it showed me that serious people like to play crazy thought games at a time when I thought I was gonna be alone as an intellectual forever.

p0sternutbag

Anything by Tom Robbins. Especially Jitterbug Perfume. ill get some quotes later.

poserkidsrus

ursula k leguin's earthsea saga

kingkilr

Alan Mendelsohn the Boy From Mars, by Daniel Pinkwater

EDIT: Actually, I think it would be the Snarkout Boys and the Avocado of Death

Sentazar

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Stranger_(novel)

It was the first character that I felt I could relate to, and in turn made me feel like I wasn't alone in my thoughts and sent me down spiraling after information in philosophy

dalamir

The Sparrow. Mary Doria Russel. Great scifi and obvious but not obnoxious religious philosophy. The sequel's not bad either.

The Industry of Souls. A book about a man who has to surrender a good life and work in a Russian gulag. Somehow it's still a happy book. On the Man Booker prize short list.

Winter's Tale. Mark Helprin. Not philosophy so much, but it's a mystical, child like view of the world and you can't help but see things this way as you read it. It's fun and beautiful, reads like poetry.

The Bhagavad Gita, Eknath Easwaran translation. "Just as a reservoir is of little use when the landscape is flooded, scriptures are of little use to the illuminated man who sees god in everything." I know we redditors (myself included) are mostly rapscallions and atheists, but this is just good philosophy, and very anti religious dogma, so I'll risk the bad karma ;-)

closeface

Mitchell is Moving by Marjorie Sharmat

"So long everything!" he shouted Then he ran next door to Margot's house "I'm moving," he said "Where?" asked Margot "Two weeks away," he said "Mitchell, where is that?" asked Margot "It's everywhere I will be after I walk for two weeks," said Mitchell, "I have lived in the same place for a long time, it is time for me to go someplace else"

erude

Cosmic Trigger or Prometheus Rising, by Robert Anton Wilson. Both are great. CT is more autobiographical, and PR presents the philosophy in a more fleshed-out fashion. Both have fundamentally changed (for the better) the way I view reality.

kentataro

"Economics in one lesson", by Henry Hazlitt. Gave me some serious clarity about the world around me. Turned me from a liberal by default (raised by liberal academia parents), to one who strives to look at the bigger picture... Foundational economic principles that make politics as usual (Dems vs Repubs) ridiculously trivial to even engage in... liberating yet burdensome, the burden that only the wise end up bearing... read at your own risk, to me well worth it..

kites47

I see it all perfectly; there are two possible situations - one can either do this or that. My honest opinion and my friendly advice is this: do it or do not do it - you will regret both. -- Kierkegaard.

I don't remember which of his writings this was from.

foodmaniac2003

The chapter on the Absurdity of Life Without God in William Lane Craig's Reasonable Faith.

grytpype

Epicurus’ letter to Menoeceus - How to Live a Happy Life

http://www.epicurus.info/etexts/Lives.html#I40

Short, but it contains a tremendous amount of wisdom.

rampantdissonance

Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut had a very unique perspective on secular humanism. It's a rather short book, and I highly recommend it.

JonOsterman

On Human Nature - E.O. Wilson

Edit: Made me stop hating people and getting so frustrated with the state of society.

onemanclic

man, i loved ender's game and all the sequels.

but now, orson scott card is killing me and my memories with his politics...

unknownunknowns

Deleuze's and Guattari's A Thousand Plateaus was a game changer for me.

kjbbb

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

thegreatuke

That Speaker of the Dead quote explains a good bulk of my life philosophy. In other news, Farenheit 451 changed my outlook on life when I was but a wee boy.

pinderschmit

The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle.

anuj016

The Jungle (Upton Sinclair)

Of Human Bondage (Somerset Maugham)

Midnight's Children (Salman Rushdie)

Generation X: Tales from an accelerated culture (Douglas Coupland)

The Beach (Alex Garland)

anything by Hermann Hesse (glad to see the love for him!)

belletti

The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien.

zdh989

The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins

leahlionheart

Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl.
The Confessions by St Augustine
The Problem of Pain by C.S. Lewis
Also: My list is painfully heavy on the Christianity-apologetics side, but those are what sprang to mind. I usually find that the books that have a great impact aren't usually just the books themselves, but that my life or outlook is prepared to receive such a philosophy - and it works in synergy with my needs and desires at that point in time.

Books I'm surprised no one has yet mentioned:
1. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
2. Damien (also by Hesse)
3. Anything by Ayn Rand (kill me).
4. The Bible (in any of its various permutations)
5. The Illuminatus! Trilogy (younger leahlionheart would heartily approve...)

ipsobot

Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance. kind of a puzzle to figure out on the first read, but lots of good philosophy. i don't exactly remember why, but one of the ideas that stuck with me, was the question of form vs. function. plus, a motorcycle trip across the U.S. would be awesome!

umbra00

Terry Goodkind's The Sword of Truth series was one of the best series I've read for this kind of thing. The number of lessons it has is awesome. If you want to read just a few of these, or all, your choice, here's a list of some quotes:http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Sword_of_Truth

tehimpact

Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged. I may not agree with it entirely, but it definitely had an impact on my overall perspective on life.

cephas_rock

Ecclesiastes.

I grew up being taught that my religion was a straightforward product of consistently didactic scripture. I then learned that this wasn't true.

"Man's fate is like that of the animals; the same fate awaits them both: As one dies, so dies the other. All have the same breath; man has no advantage over the animal. Everything is meaningless. All go to the same place; all come from dust, and to dust all return. Who knows if the spirit of man rises upward and if the spirit of the animal goes down into the earth?"

"Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, for in the grave, where you are going, there is neither working nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom."

Akrute

Who Moved My Cheese by Spencer Johnson, MD,

If You Do Not Change, You Can Become Extinct

What Would You Do If You Weren't Afraid ?

Smell The Cheese Often So You Know When It Is Getting Old

Change can be a blessing or a curse, depending on your perspective. The message of Who Moved My Cheese? is that all can come to see it as a blessing, if they understand the nature of cheese and the role it plays in their lives. Who Moved My Cheese? is a parable that takes place in a maze. Four beings live in that maze: Sniff and Scurry are mice--nonanalytical and nonjudgmental, they just want cheese and are willing to do whatever it takes to get it. Hem and Haw are "littlepeople," mouse-size humans who have an entirely different relationship with cheese. It's not just sustenance to them; it's their self-image. Their lives and belief systems are built around the cheese they've found. Most of us reading the story will see the cheese as something related to our livelihoods--our jobs, our career paths, the industries we work in--although it can stand for anything, from health to relationships. The point of the story is that we have to be alert to changes in the cheese, and be prepared to go running off in search of new sources of cheese when the cheese we have runs out.

energyx271828

Ecclesiastes

mechtonia

Anything by Feynman. Maybe not as deep as most of the other suggestions. But as a practicing engineer, his method of disregard for convention and devotion to rigor just might be the single most significant contribution to my professional success.

mondomaniatrics

I'll let you know when that happens.

filthy_atheist

Peace is every step.

hflat

Musashi - Eiji Yoshikawa

coinoperated

The Complete Essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Neither Victims Nor Executioners by Albert Camus.

SAW17150

Meditations- Marcus Aurelius.

AmidTheSnow

Atlas Shrugged

blazemaster

Mein Kempf

This book singlehandedly ended my depression and existential crisis.

ChicagoMemoria

"The Way of the Peaceful Warrior" and (to a lesser extent) "Sacred Journey of the Peaceful Warrior" by Dan Millman.

It gives you an interesting perspective.

unique172

Ethics, by Baruch Spinoza.

also Propaganda, by Edward Bernays.

DaneboJones

Aldous Huxley - Island

baconcatman

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man - James Joyce

"When the soul of man is born in this country there are nets flung at it to hold it back from flight. You talk to me of nationality, language, religion. I shall try to fly by those nets. "

"I go to encounter for the millionth time the reality of experience and to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race. "

Mm, I changed my future ambitions. I used to want to go into medical, but realized I couldn't create anything or help build on the community. So I switched to computer science. I don't know, too lazy to explain. My 10-page paper tired me out on it.

domino_stars

Wikipedia is a surprising source of perspective.

"The culture held in common by most Americans—mainstream American culture—is a Western culture largely derived from the traditions of European immigrants with influences from many other sources, such as traditions brought by slaves from Africa." - Wikipedia

maxxtraxx

The Tao of Pooh by Benjamin Hoff

"Ask me a riddle and I reply, Cottleston, Cottleston, Cottleston pie."

submar

"The Prophet" by Gibran. You can read it here. And it's a quick read too!

Quote: Then a woman said, "Speak to us of Joy and Sorrow." And he answered:

Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.

And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.

And how else can it be?

The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.

Is not the cup that hold your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter's oven?

And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives?

When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.

When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.

Some of you say, "Joy is greater than sorrow," and others say, "Nay, sorrow is the greater."

But I say unto you, they are inseparable.

Together they come, and when one sits alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.

Verily you are suspended like scales between your sorrow and your joy.

Only when you are empty are you at standstill and balanced.

When the treasure-keeper lifts you to weigh his gold and his silver, needs must your joy or your sorrow rise or fall.

jeeebus

How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie

Do not criticize "Criticism is futile because it puts a man on the defensive, and usually makes him strive to justify himself. Criticism is dangerous, because it wounds a man’s precious pride, hurts his sense of importance, and arouses his resentment."

Remember names "Remember that a man’s name is to him the sweetest and most important sound in the English language."

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If You Do Not Change, You Can Become Extinct

What Would You Do If You Weren't Afraid ?

Smell The Cheese Often So You Know When It Is Getting Old

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