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“The aim of philosophy, abstractly formulated, is to understand how things in the broadest possible sense of the term hang together in the broadest possible sense of the term”
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“If you can approach the world's complexities, both its glories and its horrors, with an attitude of humble curiosity, acknowledging that however deeply you have seen, you have only scratched the surface, you will find worlds within worlds, beauties you could not heretofore imagine, and your own mundane preoccupations will shrink to proper size, not all that important in the greater scheme of things.”
― Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon
― Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon
“People pontificate, "Suicide is selfishness." Career churchmen like Pater go a step further and call in a cowardly assault on the living. Oafs argue this specious line for varying reason: to evade fingers of blame, to impress one's audience with one's mental fiber, to vent anger, or just because one lacks the necessary suffering to sympathize. Cowardice is nothing to do with it - suicide takes considerable courage. Japanese have the right idea. No, what's selfish is to demand another to endure an intolerable existence, just to spare families, friends, and enemies a bit of soul-searching.”
― Cloud Atlas
― Cloud Atlas
“Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set fire to him and he's warm for the rest of his life.”
― Jingo
― Jingo
“He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them. But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side, if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion... Nor is it enough that he should hear the opinions of adversaries from his own teachers, presented as they state them, and accompanied by what they offer as refutations. He must be able to hear them from persons who actually believe them...he must know them in their most plausible and persuasive form.”
― On Liberty
― On Liberty
Hélio’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Hélio’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
215 books
|
31 friends
271 books
|
120 friends
371 books
|
45 friends
31 books
|
13 friends
55 books
|
180 friends
229 books
|
375 friends
0 books
|
55 friends
1 book
|
26 friends
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