Let other pens dwell on guilt and misery.
“Friendships that are obtained by payments, and not by greatness or nobility of mind, may indeed be earned, but they are not secured.”
Make hay while the sun shines.
The problem to giving too many fucks is bad for your mental health. It causes you to be overly attached to the superficial and the fake.
Our greatest human freedom is that, despite whatever our physical situation is in life, WE ARE ALWAYS FREE TO CHOOSE OUR THOUGHTS!
I cook every chance in my pot. And only when it is cooked through do I welcome it as my food.
“Let’s face it: our lives are miserable, laborious, and short.”
It is not right to vex ourselves at things, For they care not about it.
Only the thoughts that we live out have any value.
One of the definitions of sanity, itself, is the ability to tell real from unreal. Shall we need a new definition?
In this present life, I reckon that we make the nearest approach to knowledge when we have the least possible concern or interest in the body, and are not saturated with the bodily nature, but remain pure until the hour when God himself is pleased to release us. And then the foolishness of the body will be cleared away and we shall be pure and hold converse with othe pure souls, and know of ourselves the clear light everywhere; and this is surely the light of truth. For no impure thing is allowed to approach the pure. These are the sort of words, Simmias, which the true lovers of wisdom cannot help saying to one another, and thinking.
Dear and most respected bookcase! I welcome your existence, which has for over one hundred years been devoted to the radiant ideals of goodness and justice.
There is a virtue, Simmias, which is named courage. Is not that a special attribute of the philosopher? ...Again, there is temperance. Is not the calm, and control, and disdain of the passions which even the many call temperance, a quality belonging only to those who despise the body and live in philosophy?
“Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.”
Even while I protest the assembly-line production of our food, our songs, our language, and eventually our souls, I know that it was a rare home that baked good bread in the old days. Mother’s cooking was with rare exceptions poor, that good unpasteurized milk touched only by flies and bits of manure crawled with bacteria, the healthy old-time life was riddled with aches, sudden death from unknown causes, and that sweet local speech I mourn was the child of illiteracy and ignorance. It is the nature of a man as he grows older, a small bridge in time, to protest against change, particularly change for the better.
. "Silence is a true friend who never betrays."
"I shall soon be rested," said Fanny; "to sit in the shade on a fine day, and look upon verdure, is the most perfect refreshment."
Yet in doubt a man of worth will trust to his own wisdom.
“But I come from no country, from no city, no tribe. I am the son of the road, my country is the caravan, my life the most unexpected of voyages.”
“He alone knew something that even initiates didn’t know how easy it was to fast.”
To lose one parent may be regarded as a misfortune ... to lose both seems like carelessness.
Why are you being so stingy?", Sobakevich demanded. "It's cheap at the price. A rogue would cheat you, sell you some worthless rubbish instead of souls, but mine are as juicy as ripe nuts, all picked—they are all either craftsmen or sturdy peasants.
What are you laughing at? You are laughing at yourselves!
The feeling of self-assurance derived from physical achievement always transfers itself to the mental sphere.
“Pain was something one had to die with. It was something that left no strength in the arms, in the head, and destroyed even the courage to turn the head from side to side on the pillow.”
Every living creature is happy when he fulfills his destiny, that is, when he realizes himself, when he is being that which in truth he is. For this reason, Schlegel, inverting the relationship between pleasure and destiny, said, “We have a genius for what we like.” Genius, man’s superlative gift for doing something, always carries a look of supreme pleasure.
I looked at that hand and felt how rough and deeply hostile it was to me, how it was reaching out for my life and my peace of mind
7. If the mind is willing, the flesh could go on and on without many things.
The world looks with some awe upon a man who appears unconcernedly indifferent to home, money, comfort, rank, or even power and fame. The world feels not without a certain apprehension, that here is someone outside its jurisdiction; someone before whom its allurements may be spread in vain; some one strangely enfranchised, untamed, untrammelled by convention, moving independent of the ordinary currents of human action.
I have always thought that clarity is a form of courtesy that the philosopher owes; moreover, this discipline of ours considers it more truly a matter of honor today than ever before to be open to all minds … This is different from the individual sciences which increasingly [interpose] between the treasure of their discoveries and the curiosity of the profane the tremendous dragon of their closed terminology.
„When artists create pictures and thinkers search for laws and formulate thoughts, it is in order to salvage something from the great dance of death, to make something that lasts longer than we do.“
When the head aches, all the members share the pain.
Is not this insanity plea becoming rather common? Is it not so common that the reader confidently expects to see it offered in every criminal case that comes before the courts?... Really, what we want now, is not laws against crime, but a law against insanity.
My life appeared to me as unnatural, uncertain and incredible as the design on the pencase I am using at this moment. It seems that a painter who has been possessed, perhaps a perfectionist, has painted the cover of this pencase. Often, when I look at this design, it seems familiar; perhaps it is because of this design that I write or perhaps this design makes me write.
No one would ever believe how hard it is to be really alone in a city of millions when you don't have money.
“I was so upset that I was so disappointed that I wanted to die at that moment.”
Often the only difference between a problem being painful or being powerful is a sense that we chose it, and that we are responsible for it.
Reading is thinking with some one else's head instead of one's own.
If we win, nobody will care. If we lose, there will be nobody to care.
He who is a philosopher or lover of learning, and is entirely pure at departing, is alone permitted to reach the gods. And this is the reason, Simmias and Cebes, why the true votaries of philosophy abstain from all fleshly lusts, and endure and refuse to give themselves up to them—not because they fear poverty or ruin of their families, like the lovers of money, and the world in general; nor like the lovers of power and honor, because they dread the dishonor or disgrace of evil deeds.
Nearly all marriages, even happy ones, are mistakes: in the sense that almost certainly (in a more perfect world, or even with a little more care in this very imperfect one) both partners might be found more suitable mates. But the real soul-mate is the one you are actually married to.
I find I am much prouder of the victory I obtain over myself, when, in the very ardor of dispute, I make myself submit to my adversary�s force of reason, than I am pleased with the victory I obtain over him through his weakness.
Either knowledge is not to be attained at all, or if at all, after death. For then, and not til then, the soul will be in herself alone and without the body.
In revenge and in love woman is more barbaric than man is.
“Even in him, even in your great teacher, I prefer the thing to the words, his actions and his life are more important than his speech, the gestures of his hand more important than his opinions.”
Money and goods are certainly the best of references.
Its name is Public Opinion. It is held in reverence. It settles everything. Some think it is the voice of God.
What are men? Mortal gods. What are gods? Immortal men.
Republic
“Whereas the truth is that the State in which the rulers are most reluctant to govern is always the best and most quietly governed, and the State in which they are most eager, the worst.”