The question that faces every man born into this world is not what should be his purpose, which he should read more

The question that faces every man born into this world is not what should be his purpose, which he should set about to achieve, but just what to do with life? The answer, that he should order his life so that he can find the greatest happiness in it, is more a practical question, similar to that of how a man should spend his weekend, then a metaphysical proposition as to what is the mystic purpose of his life in the scheme of the universe.

What information consumes is rather obvious: It consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a read more

What information consumes is rather obvious: It consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention.

...it is curiosity, initiative, originality, and the ruthless application of honesty that count in research- much more than feats of read more

...it is curiosity, initiative, originality, and the ruthless application of honesty that count in research- much more than feats of logic and memory alone.

The genuine creator creates something that has a life of its own, something that can exist and function without him. read more

The genuine creator creates something that has a life of its own, something that can exist and function without him. This is true not only of the writer, artist and scientist, but of creators in other fields...With the noncreative it is the other way around: in whatever they do, they arrange things so that they themselves become indispensable.

Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass on a summer day listening to the murmur of read more

Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass on a summer day listening to the murmur of water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is hardly a waste of time.

Fanaticism obliterates the feelings of humanity.

Fanaticism obliterates the feelings of humanity.

The chief burden of the frustrated is the consciousness of a blemished, ineffectual self, and their chief desire is to read more

The chief burden of the frustrated is the consciousness of a blemished, ineffectual self, and their chief desire is to slough off the unwanted self and begin a new life. They try to realize this desire either by finding a new identity or by blurring and camouflaging their individual distinctness; and both these ends are reached by imitation.

The untalented are more at ease in a society that gives them valid alibis for not achieving than in one read more

The untalented are more at ease in a society that gives them valid alibis for not achieving than in one where opportunities are abundant. In an affluent society, the alienated who clamor for power are largely untalented people who cannot make use of the unprecedented opportunities for self-realization, and cannot escape the confrontation with an ineffectual self.

Since the social victim has been oppressed by society, he comes to feel that his individual life will be improved read more

Since the social victim has been oppressed by society, he comes to feel that his individual life will be improved more by changes in society than by his own initiative. Without realizing it, he makes society rather than himself the agent of change. The power he finds in his victimization may lead him to collective action against society, but it also encourages passivity within the sphere of his personal life.