What difference is there, do you think, between those in Plato's cave who can only marvel at the shadows and read more

What difference is there, do you think, between those in Plato's cave who can only marvel at the shadows and images of various objects, provided they are content and don't know what they miss, and the philosopher who has emerged from the cave and sees the real things?

What a peculiar privilege has this little agitation of the brain which we call 'thought'.

What a peculiar privilege has this little agitation of the brain which we call 'thought'.

The man who will follow precedent, but never create one, is merely an obvious example of the routineer. You find read more

The man who will follow precedent, but never create one, is merely an obvious example of the routineer. You find him desperately numerous in the civil service, in the official bureaus. To him government is something given as unconditionally, as absolutely as ocean or hill. He goes on winding the tape that he finds. His imagination has rarely extricated itself from under the administrative machine to gain any sense of what a human, temporary contraption the whole affair is. What he thinks is the heavens above him is nothing but the roof.

When you write down your ideas you automatically focus your full attention on them. Few if any of us can read more

When you write down your ideas you automatically focus your full attention on them. Few if any of us can write one thought and think another at the same time. Thus a pencil and paper make excellent concentration tools.

If the secret sorrows of everyone could be read on their forehead, how many who now cause envy would suddenly read more

If the secret sorrows of everyone could be read on their forehead, how many who now cause envy would suddenly become the objects of pity.

Life - a sexually transmitted terminal condition.

Life - a sexually transmitted terminal condition.

A heretic is a man who sees with his own eyes.

A heretic is a man who sees with his own eyes.

Virtue is not the absense of vices or the avoidance of moral dangers; virtue is a vivid and separate ting, read more

Virtue is not the absense of vices or the avoidance of moral dangers; virtue is a vivid and separate ting, like pain or a particular smell. - Tremendous Trifles.

The shy man does have some slight revenge upon society for the torture it inflicts upon him. He is able, read more

The shy man does have some slight revenge upon society for the torture it inflicts upon him. He is able, to a certain extent, to communicate his misery. He frightens other people as much as they frighten him. He acts like a damper upon the whole room, and the most jovial spirits become, in his presence, depressed and nervous.