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.
You May Also Like / View all maxioms
A man is but what he knows.
A man is but what he knows.
The remarkable thing is that we really love our neighbors as ourselves: we do unto others as we do unto read more
The remarkable thing is that we really love our neighbors as ourselves: we do unto others as we do unto ourselves. We hate others when we hate ourselves. We are tolerant of others when we tolerate ourselves. We forgive others when we forgive ourselves. We are prone to sacrifice others when we are ready to sacrifice ourselves.
No one is truly literate who cannot read his own heart.
No one is truly literate who cannot read his own heart.
The mind cannot foresee its own advance.
The mind cannot foresee its own advance.
The mentality of an army on the march is merely so much delayed adolescence; it remains persistently, incorrigibly and notoriously read more
The mentality of an army on the march is merely so much delayed adolescence; it remains persistently, incorrigibly and notoriously infantile.
There is no great concurrence between learning and wisdom.
There is no great concurrence between learning and wisdom.
If you are all wrapped up in yourself, you are overdressed.
If you are all wrapped up in yourself, you are overdressed.
Thought control, like birth control, is best undertaken as long as possible before the fact. Many grown-ups will obstinately persist, read more
Thought control, like birth control, is best undertaken as long as possible before the fact. Many grown-ups will obstinately persist, if only now and then, in composing small strings of sentences in their heads and achieving at least momentary logic. This probably cannot be prevented, but we have learned how to minimize the consequences by arranging that such grown-ups will be unable to pursue that logic very far. If they were at home in the technology of writing, there's no telling how much social disorder they would cause by thinking things out at length.Our schools have chosen to cut this danger off as close to the root as possible, thus taking measures to preclude not only the birth of thought but its conception. They give the pill to even the youngest children, but just to be on the safe side, they give it to everybody else, too, especially all would-be schoolteachers.
The short-lived self, teetering on the edge of extinction, is the only thing that can ever really matter.
The short-lived self, teetering on the edge of extinction, is the only thing that can ever really matter.
