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.
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A man is never more his single separate self than when he sets out on a journey.
A man is never more his single separate self than when he sets out on a journey.
The burning of an author's books, imprisonment for opinion's sake, has always been the tribute that an ignorant age pays read more
The burning of an author's books, imprisonment for opinion's sake, has always been the tribute that an ignorant age pays to the genius of its time.
It is a juvenile notion that a society needs a lofty purpose and a shining vision to achieve much. Both read more
It is a juvenile notion that a society needs a lofty purpose and a shining vision to achieve much. Both in the marketplace and on the battlefield men who set their hearts on toys have often displayed unequal initiative and drive. And one must be ignorant of the creative process to look for a close correspondence between motive and achievement in the world of thought and imagination.
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.
Facts per se can neither prove nor refute anything. Everything is decided by the interpretation and explanation of the facts, read more
Facts per se can neither prove nor refute anything. Everything is decided by the interpretation and explanation of the facts, by the ideas and the theories.
Learning is not compulsory. Neither is survival.
Learning is not compulsory. Neither is survival.
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.
The history of science knows scores of instances where an investigator was in the possession of all the important facts read more
The history of science knows scores of instances where an investigator was in the possession of all the important facts for a new theory but simply failed to ask the right questions.
That hatred springs more from self-contempt than from a legitimate grievance is seen in the intimate connection between hatred and read more
That hatred springs more from self-contempt than from a legitimate grievance is seen in the intimate connection between hatred and a guilty conscience.
