[...] the less you know, the less you will be aware of your ignorance. The familiar metaphor is that the wider the circle of our knowledge, the greater its contact with the unknown, and the more oppressive our feeling of cognitive inadequacy. By cont...
When you are criticised don't ignore it, but don't get overpowered by it, and certainly there is no need to be defensive about it. Rather, wait for a while and then weigh up its merits and demerits, balance it out and chart out your approaches and ac...
[Salvation] is a life-changing experience when it happens, and if our life isn’t changed by it, then it either didn’t happen at all or we are so caught up in this world, spending so much time, effort, and emotion on the red circle, that we are ig...
No one needs to hit rock bottom to change. And yet so many people do, only because most of us are unskilled in communicating with ourselves. Stress, depression, anxiety, insomnia, headaches, illness ... these are all symptoms of a bigger problem. You...
From the union of power and money, from the union of power and secrecy, from the union of government and science, from the union of government and art, from the union of science and money, from the union of ambition and ignorance, from the union of g...
I should have liked to be asked to say what I knew. They always tried to ask what I did not know. When I would have willingly displayed my knowledge, they sought to expose my ignorance. This sort of treatment had only one result: I did not do well in...
Magic begins in superstition, and ends in science. ... At every step the history of civilization teaches us how slight and superficial a structure civilization is, and how precariously it is poised upon the apex of a never-extinct volcano of poor and...
I think that there always have been and always will be at least two Americas - the poor America, the second America, tends to be in the shadows. Sometimes it's an America of people in a ghetto of color, sometimes it's an economic ghetto, but definite...
Women collect grievances, hold grudges and change shape. They pass hard, legitimate judgments, unlike the purblind guesses of men, fogged with romanticism and ignorance and bias and wish. Women know too much, they can neither be deceived nor trusted....
Perhaps it is weariness that causes seers not to act on what they see; for whereas the wisdom of the world can be vast, it includes the many futilities. Ideas do not have legs with which to run and hands with which to craft. They are wisps of smoke f...
You can ignore me, Rachel, and you can try to treat me as a friend, but none of that will erase the fact that I think about kissing you every second I’m awake and dream at night of my hands on your body. And it sure as hell won’t erase that I’m...
Because I care about human beings, I want them to be free to do what is right for them. Isn't that more important than mere peace on earth? Isn't freedom, even dangerous freedom, preferable to the safest slavery, to peace bought with ignorance, cowar...
I ache to hear her tell me she loves me, but forcing her to put words to how she feels pushes her further into the silence she seems comfortable calling home now. I tell myself to be patient and understanding, but inside there's a longing only those ...
People like to say, ‘War is hell.’ Well, that saying’s true. I’ve seen it. But the saying’s also bullshit, because it ignores a truth that’s bigger – life is hell. Life is hell, Honey, and war just attracts people who’ve learned to ch...
Give a smile always, not once a while. Life's great when you wake up and ignore the scaring nightmares you had. Forget the bitter bile; life's sweet beyond River Nile. File your teeth out and smile!
Without realizing that the past is constantly determining their present actions, they avoid learning anything about their history. They continue to live in their repressed childhood situation, ignoring the fact that is no longer exists, continuing to...
Reading is a choice. The will to do depends the reader. We may or may not do it but when we kill reading, we kill a purposeful mind. Reading a page of a purposeful book per day is not only a great medicine to the mind but also a powerful antidote to ...
I sit on my bed and think about Nader McMillan and wonder what I’m going to do. Ignore him. Stand up to him. Avoid him. Be “tough.” I think of the stuff Dad has said over the years. How he finally gave up suggesting things.
How often – I continue reflecting – is it that we see what we want to see, rather than what is really before our eyes. In the trade we call this confirmation bias, and our brains are riddled with it. We take a position on something and thereafter...
When things get tough, remember this mariner’s star. Bring to mind that everything external is designed as a challenge. A test sent to ensure you are actually worthy of acquiring your goal and reward. Recognise them as such and you will always find...
Here then we are first to consider a book, presented to us by a barbarous and ignorant people, written in an age when they were still more barbarous, and in all probability long after the facts which it relates, corroborated by no concurring testimon...
