Nature attains perfection, but man never does. There is a perfect ant, a perfect bee, but man is perpetually unfinished. He is both an unfinished animal and an unfinished man. It is this incurable unfinishedness which sets man apart from other living things. For, in the attempt to finish himself, man becomes a creator. Moreover, the incurable unfinishedness keeps man perpetually immature, perpetually capable of learning and growing.
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Of all the judgments we pass in life, none is more important than the judgment we pass on ourselves.
Of all the judgments we pass in life, none is more important than the judgment we pass on ourselves.
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.
There is only one step from fanaticism to barbarism.
There is only one step from fanaticism to barbarism.
Persons of high self-esteem are not driven to make themselves superior to others; they do not seek to prove their read more
Persons of high self-esteem are not driven to make themselves superior to others; they do not seek to prove their value by measuring themselves against a comparative standard. Their joy is being who they are, not in being better than someone else.
Indeed he knows not how to know who knows not also how to un-know.
Indeed he knows not how to know who knows not also how to un-know.
The prerequisite of originality is the art of forgetting, at the proper moment, what we know.
The prerequisite of originality is the art of forgetting, at the proper moment, what we know.
Irony is the hygiene of the mind.
Irony is the hygiene of the mind.
Anybody who is 25 or 30 years old has physical scars from all sorts of things, from tuberculosis to polio. read more
Anybody who is 25 or 30 years old has physical scars from all sorts of things, from tuberculosis to polio. It's the same with the mind.
The hardest part of gaining any new idea is sweeping out the false idea occupying that niche.
The hardest part of gaining any new idea is sweeping out the false idea occupying that niche.
