20+ Quotes by Mário Sérgio Cortella that will make you rethink life

The philosopher, writer, professor and speaker Mário Sérgio Cortella, 65, from Paraná, is a contemporary scholar who speaks in simple and accessible language about issues such as happiness, work, ethics, life and death. Inspired by thinkers such as Socrates, Descartes and Nietzsche, Cortella already has more than 20 books published – some of which are always on the bestseller lists – and is also a success on the internet.

At the Incredible.club you will know phrases of this thinker. Some of them will likely make you rethink your own life and choices.

Short strong phrases about intelligence:

Courage is preparation, not mere euphoric disposition.

Any power that, instead of serving, serves itself, is a power that does not serve.

A humble person is one who does not diminish the other in order to grow.

It is necessary… not to anesthetize our conscience and start thinking that everything is normal.

The impossible is not a fact: it is an opinion.

Little parables:

There is a Chinese saying that if two men are walking along a road, each carrying a loaf of bread, when they meet, they exchange the loaves; each one leaves with one. But if two men are walking along a road, each carrying an idea, when they meet, they add up the ideas; each leaves with two. You are an individual among another 6 billion individuals, composing a single species among another 3 million species already classified, that lives on a little planet that revolves around a little star that is one among another 100 billion stars, composing a single galaxy among another 200 billion galaxies, in one of the possible universes that, from expanding so much, will one day disappear…
Who are you? We are not born ready (…) it is absurd to believe in the idea that a person, the longer he lives, the older he gets… This does not happen with people, but with a stove, shoes, refrigerator. People are born not ready and are made. I, in the year 2000, am my newest edition (revised and sometimes slightly enlarged)

About words and verbs:

Happiness is synonymous with fertility. Fertility is not just about generating other people. Fertility is preventing life from ending in your multiple condition. Fertility is making the desertification of our dreams difficult. Fertility is to prevent our future from being sterilized. Ethics is the set of values ​​and principles that we use to decide the three big questions of life: “Do I want to?”, “Should I?”, “Can I?”. There are things I want, but I shouldn’t, there are things I owe, but I can’t, and there are things I can, but I don’t want. I draw attention to the verb ‘import’, which means to bring in. When I only live ‘export’ – that is, when I only put out and receive nothing in – I create the possibility of letting go.

About life:

It is not death that matters to me, because it is a fact. What matters to me is what I do with my life while my death does not happen, so that this life is not banal, futile, small. Tragedy is not when a man dies. Tragedy is what dies inside a man when he is alive. Life is already short. May she not be too small. Affection and knowledge are two things that, if you keep, you lose.

As an educator:

It is not up to the State, via public school, to replace the responsibility that the family has, unless it is in a situation of total carelessness. It is up to the institution to promote autonomy, solidarity and critical training. But the main responsibility remains with the family and it cannot be exempted from that. The school, for example, does not create violence alone, it only reproduces violence within it. But it can also be a way to reduce it if it works with content that offers meaning to students’ lives. The juvenile offender will always be the result of a society that neglects its children and young people. It is necessary to end this cycle of victimization: society abandons, creates a victim who is the child, and that same child creates other victims when he starts stealing, stealing, raping, murdering.

About the family:

Schooling is just one part of education. Educating is a family task. Praise in public and correct in private. A sage guides without offending, and teaches without humiliating. A good habit comes little by little. The bad habit also comes out little by little. Discipline is the organization of freedom

What other life lessons would you add to our list?