The burning conviction that we have a holy duty towards others is often a way of attaching our drowning selves to a passing raft. What looks like a giving hand is often a holding on for dear life. Take away our holy duties and you leave our lives puny and meaningless. There is no doubt that in exchanging a self-centered for a selfless life we gain enormously in self-esteem. The vanity of the selfless, even those who practice utmost humility, is boundless.
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Whence come these hatreds...? They are an expression of a desperate effort to suppress an awareness of our inadequacy, worthlessness, read more
Whence come these hatreds...? They are an expression of a desperate effort to suppress an awareness of our inadequacy, worthlessness, guilt and other shortcomings of the self. Self-contempt is here transmuted into hatred of others- and there is a most determined and persistent effort to mask this switch.
Reason and action are congeneric and homogenous, two aspects of the same phenomenon.
Reason and action are congeneric and homogenous, two aspects of the same phenomenon.
The central task of education is to implant a will and facility for learning; it should produce not learned but read more
The central task of education is to implant a will and facility for learning; it should produce not learned but learning people. The truly human society is a learning society, where grandparents, parents, and children are students together.
He who can take no interest in what is small will take false interest in what is great.
He who can take no interest in what is small will take false interest in what is great.
There's a very fine line between a groove and a rut; a fine line between eccentrics and people who are read more
There's a very fine line between a groove and a rut; a fine line between eccentrics and people who are just plain nuts. - "Prisoners of their Hairdos".
In the world of reality, life, and human action there is no such thing as interests independent of ideas, preceding read more
In the world of reality, life, and human action there is no such thing as interests independent of ideas, preceding them temporarily and logically. What a man considers his interest is the result of his ideas.
Firmness of purpose is one of the most necessary sinews of character, and one of the best instruments of success. read more
Firmness of purpose is one of the most necessary sinews of character, and one of the best instruments of success. Without it genius wastes its efforts in a maze of inconsistencies.
The first step in freeing yourself from social restrictions is the realization that there is no such thing as a read more
The first step in freeing yourself from social restrictions is the realization that there is no such thing as a "safe" code of conduct - one that would earn everyone's approval. Your actions can always be condemned by someone - for being too bold or too apathetic, for being too conformist or too nonconformist, for being too liberal or too conservative. So it's necessary to decide whose approval is important to you.
The envious only hate the excellence they cannot reach.
The envious only hate the excellence they cannot reach.
