Decide! There is nothing in the world so pitiable as an undecided man, who wavers between two feelings, hoping to reconcile them, and does not understand that nothing can unite them.
~ Goethe
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Quotes
Knowing
This is the game we play: The only thing you really know is what you can put into words.
~ Alan Watts
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Listening
Sit at your desk and listen.
~ Franz Kafka
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Meaning
Those who can’t find anything to live for, always invent something to die for. Then they want the rest of us to die for it too.
~ Lew Welch
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Open to
It’s a rare person who wants to hear what he doesn’t want to hear.
~ Richard Cavett
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Belief
Some things have to be believed to be seen.
~ Ralph Hodgson
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Accumulated
The dead outnumber the living 14 to 1, and we ignore the accumulated experience of such a huge majority of mankind at our peril.
~ Niall Ferguson
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Unnecessary
Humans don’t mind hardship, in fact they thrive on it; what they mind is not feeling necessary. Modern society has perfected the art of making people not feel necessary.
~ Sebastian Junger
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Reading
The man who doesn’t read good books has no advantage over the man who can’t read them.
~ Mark Twain
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Growth
Everyone encourages you to grow up to the point where you can discount your own bad moods. Few encourage you to continue to the point where you can discount society’s bad moods.
~ Paul Graham
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History
History as usually written is quite different from history as usually lived. The historian records the exceptional because it is interesting.
~ Will Durant
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Jealousy
I learned early that people will admire your work more if they are not jealous of you.
~ Benjamin Franklin
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Comforts
Comforts, once gained, become necessities. And if enough of those comforts become necessities, you eventually peel yourself away from any kind of common feeling with the rest of humanity.
~ Sebastian Junger
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A good story
The best arguments in the world won’t change a single person’s mind. The only thing that can do that is a good story.
~ Richard Powers
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Wisdom
My definition of wisdom is knowing the long-term consequences of your actions.
~ Naval Ravikant
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Point of view
A point of view can be a dangerous luxury when substituted for insight and understanding.
~ Marshall McLuhan
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Childhood’s end
When I was a child I wanted to be an architect, and now that I am an architect I would sometimes like to be a child again.
~ Federico Babina
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Flexibility
The boldness of asking deep questions may require unforeseen flexibility if we are to accept the answers.
~ Brian Greene
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Improvement
People try to do all sorts of clever and difficult things to improve life instead of doing the simplest, easiest thing—refusing to participate in activities that make life bad.
~ Leo Tolstoy
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Distraction
The defenders of our freedom have failed to take into account our infinite appetite for distraction.
~ Aldous Huxley
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