Science is a way to call the bluff of those who only pretend to knowledge… It can tell us when we’re being lied to. It provides a mid-course correction to our mistakes.
I have always felt that a human being could only be saved by another human being. I am aware that we do not save each other very often. But I am also aware that we save each other some of the time.
1. Allow yourself the uncomfortable luxury of changing your mind.
Never, in peace or war, commit your virtue or your happiness to the future… The present is the only time in which any duty can be done or any grace received.
We all have regrets and most of us know that those regrets, as excruciating as they can be, are the things that help us lead improved lives… They require our attention. You have to do something with them. One way is to seek forgiveness by making what might be called living amends, by using whatever gifts you may have in order to help rehabilitate the world.
The use of music is to remind us how short a time we have a body.
The cutting of the gem has to be finished before you can see whether it shines.
A relationship is a physiologic process, as real and as potent as any pill or surgical procedure.
Intimacy is a candid Child-to-Child relationship with no games and no mutual exploitation… Freedom of the Child is the essential part of intimacy, and it turns the whole universe, including the sun, moon, and stars, into a golden apple for both parties to enjoy.
In old age we should wish still to have passions strong enough to prevent us turning in on ourselves.
How to keep life from becoming a parody of itself –
Simone de Beauvoir on
the art of growing older (in a culture that treats it like a disease).
When you surrender, the problem ceases to exist. Try to solve it, or conquer it, and you only set up more resistance… The most difficult thing to admit, and to realize with one’s whole being, is that you alone control nothing.
