Archive
— Page 11 of 37 pages.
“To know how to free oneself is nothing; the arduous thing is to know what to do with one’s freedom.”
“Society cares about the individual only in so far as he is profitable. The young know this. Their anxiety as they enter in upon social life matches the anguish of the old as they are excluded from it.”
“I much prefer the sharpest criticism of a single intelligent man to the thoughtless approval of the masses.”
“Make your ego porous. Will is of little importance, complaining is nothing, fame is nothing. Openness, patience, receptivity, solitude is everything.”
“Nothing in the world is harder than speaking the truth and nothing easier than flattery. If there’s the hundredth part of a false note in speaking the truth, it leads to a discord, and that leads to trouble. But if all, to the last note, is false in flattery, it is just as agreeable, and is heard not without satisfaction. It may be a coarse satisfaction, but still a satisfaction. And however coarse the flattery, at least half will be sure to seem true. That’s so for all stages of development and classes of society.”
“People almost invariably arrive at their beliefs not on the basis of proof but on the basis of what they find attractive.”
“I speak truth, not so much as I would, but as much as I dare; and I dare a little the more as I grow older.”
“It is quite possible that we are descending into an age in which two plus two will make five when the Leader says so.”
“Much reading after a certain age diverts the mind from its creative pursuits. Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking, just as the man who spends too much time in the theaters is apt to be content with living vicariously instead of living his own life.”