I must say a word about fear. It is life’s only true opponent. Only fear can defeat life. It is a clever, treacherous adversary, how well I know. It has no decency, respects no law or convention, shows no mercy. It goes for your weakest spot, which it finds with unerring ease. It begins in your mind, always. One moment you are feeling calm, self-possessed, … [ Read more ]
Author: Yann Martel | Subjects: Fear, Psychology | Behavior
With exceptions so rare that they are regarded as miracles and freaks of nature, successful democratic politicians are insecure and intimidated men. They advance politically only as they placate, appease, bribe, seduce, bamboozle, or otherwise manage to manipulate the demanding and threatening elements in their constituencies. The decisive consideration is not whether the proposition is good but whether it is popular—not whether it will work … [ Read more ]
Author: Walter Lippmann | Subjects: Politics & Public Policy, Psychology | Behavior
The testimony of many has little more value than that of few, since the number of people who reason well in complicated matters is much smaller than that of those who reason badly. If reasoning were like hauling I should agree that several reasoners would be worth more than one, just as several horses can haul more sacks of grain than one can. But reasoning … [ Read more ]
Author: Gaileo | Subject: Thought | Inquiry
It is scarcity and plenty that make the vulgar take things to be precious or worthless.
Author: Gaileo | Subjects: Environment | Sustainability, Insight, Life & Society, Material Possessions
Desire is not what you see, but what you imagine.
Subject: Psychology | Behavior
I am convinced that no one loses anyone, because no one owns anyone. That is the true experience of freedom: having the most important thing in the world without owning it.
Subjects: Freedom | Liberty, Life & Society, Relationships
The little experience of life I’ve had has taught me that no one owns anything, that everything is an illusion – and that applies to material as well as spiritual things. Anyone who has lost something they thought was theirs forever (as has happened often enough to me already) finally comes to realize that nothing really belongs to them.
Subject: Life & Society
Religion is the adoption by the many of the vision of a charismatic few.
Author: Jack Miles | Subject: Religion
Softheaded spiritualism is its own form of fundamentalism. The suggestion that the ‘true essence’ of all religions is spirituality implies that if only people were not so stupid as to believe what their tradition teaches them, they would see that behind all this mere cultural baggage is the supreme ‘spiritual’ truth.
Author: Paul Powers | Subject: Religion
Science is a magnificent human achievement. But it cannot tell us how to live, or what we should live for. The need for that kind of meaning is, for us humans, as deep and relentless as the need for food or water. It cannot be denied for long.
Author: Wilfred M. McClay | Subjects: Life & Society, Math & Science
The moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life—the children; those who are in the twilight of life—the elderly; and those in the shadows of life—the sick, the needy, and the handicapped.
Author: Hubert humphrey | Subject: Politics & Public Policy
Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control. These three alone lead life to sovereign power.
Author: Alfred Lord Tennyson | Subjects: Life & Society, Power
Some of the limitations which have been accepted as natural are in reality only conventional, and so can be removed.
Author: Samuel McChord Crothers | Subject: Wisdom
The progress of man has never been impeded by preconceived ideas regarding his abilities, his proper interests, and his appropriate activities. Woman has always been so hampered.
Author: Faith Fairfield | Subjects: Culture, Feminism, Perception | Observation
The chains of habit are generally too small to be felt until they are too strong to be broken.
Author: Samuel Johnson | Subject: Psychology | Behavior
To enjoy a thing exclusively is commonly to exclude yourself from the true enjoyment of it.
Author: Henry David Thoreau | Subjects: Happiness, Wisdom
One of the hardest lessons we have to learn in this life, and one that many persons never learn, is to see the divine, the celestial, the pure, in the common, the near at hand—to see that heaven lies about us here in this world … Why, we have invented the whole machinery of the supernatural, with its unseen spirits and powers good and bad, … [ Read more ]
Author: John Burroughs | Subjects: Perception | Observation, Philosophy
Life is the sum of all your choices. History, by extrapolation, equals the accumulated choices of all mankind.
Note: only the first sentence is attributable to Camus I think…
Author: Albert Camus | Subjects: History, Life & Society
Life is like a game of cards. The hand that is dealt you represents determinism; the way you play it is free will.
Author: Jawaharlal Nehru | Subjects: Life & Society, Wisdom
Success, not greatness, is the only god the entire world serves.
Author: Cameron Crowe | Source: Drew Baylor (character played by Orlando Bloom) in the movie, Elizabethtown (2005) | Subjects: Culture, Life & Society, Success / Failure