2098 Quotations Found

In imagination we feel sure that it would be lovely to live with a full and rich awareness of the world. But in practice sensitiveness hurts. It is not possible to develop the capacity to see beauty without developing also the capacity to see ugliness, for they are the same capacity. The capacity for joy is also the capacity for pain. We soon find that … [ Read more ]

Author: John Macmurray | Source: The Marginalian (Brain Pickings) | Subjects: Concepts, Life & Society, Pain & Suffering

Our existential predicament is that, governed by the reflex to spare ourselves pain, we blunt our sensitivity to life, thus impoverishing our creative vitality and our store of aliveness.

Author: Maria Popova | Source: The Marginalian (Brain Pickings) | Subjects: Life & Society, Psychology | Behavior

Intellectual knowledge tells us about the world. it gives us knowledge about things, not knowledge of them. It does not reveal the world as it is. Only emotional knowledge can do that.

Author: John Macmurray | Source: The Marginalian (Brain Pickings) | Subjects: Education | Scholarship, Intelligence | Knowledge, Thought | Inquiry

The strength of our opposition to the development of reason is measured by the strength of our dislike of being disillusioned. We should all admit, if it were put to us directly, that it is good to get rid of illusions, but in practice the process of disillusionment is painful and disheartening. We all confess to the desire to get at the truth, but in … [ Read more ]

Author: John Macmurray | Source: The Marginalian (Brain Pickings) | Subjects: Education | Scholarship, Intelligence | Knowledge, Psychology | Behavior, Thought | Inquiry

The main difficulty that faces us in the development of a scientific knowledge of the world lies not in the outside world but in our own emotional life. It is the desire to retain beliefs to which we are emotionally attached for some reason or other. It is the tendency to make the wish father to the thought. .. If we are to be scientific … [ Read more ]

Author: John Macmurray | Source: The Marginalian (Brain Pickings) | Subjects: Education | Scholarship, Intelligence | Knowledge, Math & Science, Thought | Inquiry

We suffer primarily because we are so insentient to our own emotions, so illiterate in reading ourselves.

Author: Maria Popova | Source: The Marginalian (Brain Pickings) | Subjects: Concepts, Education | Scholarship, Life & Society, Pain & Suffering, Personal Improvement, Psychology | Behavior, Thought | Inquiry

We feel our way through life, then rationalize our actions, as if emotion were a shameful scar on the countenance of reason. […] Our emotional lives [are] the root of our motives beneath the topsoil of reason and rationalization.

Author: Maria Popova | Source: The Marginalian (Brain Pickings) | Subjects: Life & Society, Psychology | Behavior

I think there are a number of reasons that looking at human beings as biological organisms can be unsettling. One of them is the possibility of inequality. If human nature is a “blank slate,” then by definition we’re all the same. Whereas if nature endows us with anything, then some people might be endowed with more of it than others are, or with different stuff … [ Read more ]

Author: Steven Pinker | Source: Discover Magazine | Subjects: Life & Society, Nature, Sociology | Anthropology

We can, with spiritual safety, rebel only in so far as we are personally sensitive to the claims of other individual lives that touch our own. The old herd-problem remains of how to live together; and as the union grows closer and more intricate the chances of mutual hurt are greater, and the sensitiveness must grow keener. Others are safe from and with us only … [ Read more ]

Author: Jane Ellen Harrison | Source: The Marginalian (Brain Pickings) | Subjects: Life & Society, Relationships

Patriotism is collective herd-instinct; it is repressive of individuality. You feel strongly because you feel alike; you are reinforced by the other homogenous unites; you sing the same song and wave the same flag.

Author: Jane Ellen Harrison | Source: The Marginalian (Brain Pickings) | Subjects: International, Life & Society, Psychology | Behavior

We are all, whatever part of the world we come from, persuaded that our own nation is superior to all others. Seeing that each nation has its characteristic merits and demerits, we adjust our standard of values so as to make out that the merits possessed by our nation are the really important ones, while its demerits are comparatively trivial. Here, again, the rational man … [ Read more ]

Author: Bertrand Russell | Source: Farnam Street | Subjects: International, Life & Society

If an opinion contrary to your own makes you angry, that is a sign that you are subconsciously aware of having no good reason for thinking as you do… The most savage controversies are those about matters as to which there is no good evidence either way. Persecution is used in theology, not in arithmetic, because in arithmetic there is knowledge, but in theology there … [ Read more ]

Author: Bertrand Russell | Source: Farnam Street | Subjects: Education | Scholarship, Intelligence | Knowledge, Thought | Inquiry

Our bodies are sublime, rebellious colonies of cells and our minds are floating, chameleon-like processes. This doesn’t mean that we should see human life as meaningless. Thinking we are exceptional is different from thinking our lives have meaning. There’s every reason to believe that our sense of significance is something we can’t do without. But the weighing of human significance is less a fact of … [ Read more ]

Author: Melanie Challenger | Source: The Marginalian (Brain Pickings) | Subjects: Life & Society, Psychology | Behavior

The myth of human exceptionalism is as unsettling as it is irrational. The idea of our superiority runs with mercenary and sometimes aggressive features of our psychology. Being animal is a kind of syndrome for us, a peculiar combination of symptoms, emotions and opinions. It’s something we deny, manipulate as a weapon and seek to escape. At other times, being animal is given as a … [ Read more ]

Author: Melanie Challenger | Source: The Marginalian (Brain Pickings) | Subjects: Insight, Life & Society, Psychology | Behavior

We do not attract what we want, we attract what we are.

Author: James Lane Allen | Source: Better Humans | Subjects: Life & Society, Relationships

There may be a lot of truth to the terrible things that have happened, but those terrible things—you have to shut the door at some point and say, “I am my own man or woman, and I move forward… if you are somebody who uses other events as a reason to self-destruct, you’re ceding power.

Author: Julie Gurner | Subjects: Advice, Life & Society, Personal Improvement

You need to make a commitment to date the right people for the right reasons. This might mean staying single for longer, looking past some cosmetic imperfections, or seeing a movie or two with someone you might once have dismissed. But in the long run, it’s sure to give you a lot less heartache.

Author: Arthur C. Brooks | Source: The Atlantic | Subject: Relationships

The gap between knowing what you want and going after it is where fear thrives. You don’t need enough courage for the entire journey. You only need courage for the next step.

Author: Shane Parrish | Subjects: Advice, Fear, Life & Society, Personal Improvement, Psychology | Behavior

Writing gives poor thinking nowhere to hide. When your invisible thoughts are made visible, you are forced to confront them as they are, not as you wish them to be. You can’t simply take a few minutes here and there, get the gist of the problem, and expect to have clear thinking and unique insights. Good thinking, like good writing, demands patience.

Author: Shane Parrish | Subjects: Education | Scholarship, Reading | Writing, Thought | Inquiry

Sometimes it seems that it might be better to go back to those simpler days, that one might get more out of a less complex life. But it cannot be done. One changes with prosperity. We all think we should like to lead the simple life, and then we find that we have picked up a thousand little habits which we are quite unconscious of … [ Read more ]

Author: Harvey Firestone | Subjects: Experience, Life & Society, Personal Improvement