To be serious is to notice and remember the specifics, the contradictions, the ambiguities, to honor the whole human person rather than to reduce him or her to a one-dimensional symbol of virtuous victimhood or (for that matter) anything else. It is to tell the truth about the world, however much that truth may confound ideology, rather than to turn “living issues into abstractions.”
Author: V.S. Naipaul | Subjects: Perception | Observation, Wisdom
Mankind must remember that peace is not God’s gift to his creatures; peace is our gift to each other.
Author: Elie Wiesel | Subjects: Culture, Life & Society
The body hampers the mind and soul with its petty wants, needs, debilities, and imperfections.
Author: Socrates | Subjects: Perception | Observation, Personal Improvement, Psychology | Behavior
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former.
Author: Albert Einstein | Subjects: Perception | Observation, Psychology | Behavior
Here’s to the Chef
Who makes sauces so dear,
And here’s to the Barkeep,
Who pours such good cheer.
To our friends and our families,
and anyone not here,
The Best of the Season,
and a Prosperous New Year!
Author: Unknown | Subjects: Gratitude, Life & Society, Miscellaneous
The first duty of a revolutionary is to get away with it.
Author: Abbie Hoffman | Subjects: Life & Society, Politics & Public Policy
The trouble with being on the side of right, as one sees it, is that one often finds oneself amongst very questionable allies.
Authors: John Gay, Terence Rattigan | Source: The movie Separate Tables (1958) | Subject: Ethics | Integrity | Morality
That which thy fathers have bequeathed to thee, earn it anew if thou wouldst possess it.
Author: Goethe | Subjects: Miscellaneous, Personal Improvement
There are many ways to victimize people. One way is to convince them that they are victims.
Author: Karen Hwang | Subjects: Miscellaneous, Perception | Observation
Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocre minds. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence.
Author: Albert Einstein | Subjects: Intelligence | Knowledge, Life & Society, Psychology | Behavior
In making giants of the Founders, we make pygmies of ourselves; in making saints of them, we make sinners of ourselves. Sinners we may be, but no more so than they. And although humility is a virtue, when consciousness of our sins becomes an inferiority complex that causes large numbers of the present generation to turn away from politics as incomparably inept or corrupt, it … [ Read more ]
Author: H. W. Brands | Subjects: History, Politics & Public Policy
If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is “thank you,” it will be enough.
Author: Meister Eckhart | Subjects: Gratitude, Religion
In my whole life, I have known no wise people (over a broad subject matter area) who didn’t read all the time — none. Zero.
Subjects: Learning, Reading | Writing, Wisdom
The real work of critical inquiry is to examine what we think we know in order to learn about what we do not know. We must question our givens and opinions. For it is far easier to label than to understand, and intellectual laziness undermines our studies with the deadly inversion of the scientific method: “I’ll believe it when I see it!” becomes “I’ll see … [ Read more ]
Author: Emil Homerin | Subjects: Education | Scholarship, Thought | Inquiry
Science is a discipline you practice with passion, and art is a passion you practice with discipline.
Author: Unknown | Subjects: Art, Math & Science
Iron is full of impurities that weaken it; through forging, it becomes steel and is transformed into a razor-sharp sword. Human beings develop in the same fashion.
Author: Morihei Ueshiba | Subjects: Perception | Observation, Personal Improvement, Psychology | Behavior
I can teach anybody how to get what they want out of life. The problem is that I can’t find anybody who can tell me what they want.
Author: Mark Twain | Subjects: Desires, Life & Society
Tourism, human circulation considered as consumption, is fundamentally nothing more than the leisure of going to see what has become banal.
Author: Guy Debord | Subjects: Miscellaneous, Travel
The United States Army says, “Our soldiers are our credentials.” As a society, can we say, “Our children are our credentials?”
Author: Frances Hesselbein | Subjects: Culture, Politics & Public Policy
I have, alas, studied philosophy/jurisprudence and medicine, too,
And, worst of all, theology
With keen endeavor, through and through –
And here I am, for all my lore,
The wretched fool I was before.
Called Master of Arts, and Doctor to boot …
Author: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe | Source: Faust | Subjects: Education | Scholarship, Philosophy, Wisdom