“The more intelligent, the less sane.”
—George Orwell
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“As soon as the flame is burning within you, run; for you do not know when it will go out and leave you in darkness.”
—John Climacus, The Ladder of Divine Ascent -
“Attend to yourself in the presence of your brethren, and never try to appear more correct than they are in any circumstance whatever. For if you do, you will have wrought a double ill: you will sting them by your false and hypocritical zeal and you will give yourself a motive for presumption.”
—John Climacus, The Ladder of Divine Ascent -
“Men go abroad to wonder at the heights of mountains, at the huge waves of the sea, at the long courses of the rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motions of the stars, and they pass by themselves without wondering.”
—St. Augustine -
Let books be your dining table,
And you shall be full of delights.
Let them be your mattress,
And you shall sleep restful nights.
—St. Ephrem the Syrian -
“If you are an ardent reader, seek not brilliant and erudite texts; otherwise the demon of haughtiness will strike your heart. But like a wise bee that gathers honey from flowers, so also through your reading obtain healing for your soul.”
—St. Ephrem the Syrian -
“I don’t know what good it is to know so much and be smart as whips and all if it doesn’t make you happy.”
Franny and Zooey
J.D. Salinger -
“Martha Graham once said, that each of us is unique and if we didn’t exist, something in the world would have been lost. I wonder, then, why we are so quick to conform—and what the world has lost because we have.”
—Donald Miller, Scary Close: Dropping the Act and Finding True Intimacy -
“Not only do my choices and their consequences effect those around me immediately, but my choices also effect those far away and those not yet born.”
—Fr. Michael Gillis -
But like our tribal ancestors, modern society needs wildcards and weirdos too. Humanity needs some source of innovation in order to take a gamble just as much as we need the stability that runs our everyday lives.
Maybe the hypersensitive anxiety that gives panic attacks to the girl at your office is the same hypersensitive anxiety that will inspire her to write a brilliant novel or poem.
Maybe the psychopathic asshole CEO of your company is good at making business decisions precisely because he’s a psychopathic asshole. He only sees the numbers, not people. And strangely, you all benefit financially from his lack of empathy.
Maybe that autistic kid in your calc class will go on to produce major advances in quantum physics and win a Nobel prize one day. So stop stealing his lunch money, asshole.
SO GOOD QUOTES 