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How can we know who we are and where we are headed if we don’t know where we have come from? How can we call ourselves patriots if we know little of our country’s past?
“institutions such as schools, churches, governments and political organizations of every sort all tended to direct thought for ends other than truth, for the perpetuation of their own functions, and for the control of individuals in the service of these functions.”
― Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
― Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
“When the world is storm-driven and the bad that happens and the worse that threatens are so urgent as to shut out everything else from view, then we need to know all the strong fortresses of the spirit which men have built through the ages.”
― The Course of Human Events
― The Course of Human Events
“Dignity is your value, Jack. It’s something you and every living person have just because you are.” “Is that all?” I ask. “Isn’t that enough?” I’m quiet. “That’s plenty,” Dad tells me. “In fact, it’s everything. The dignity of others is how we know some actions are good and others bad. It’s how you know it isn’t right to steal, or to kill without grave reckoning, or to lie.” “You get all that from dignity?” “You do.”
― Last Summer Boys
― Last Summer Boys
“Life is diverse. Living is to live with difference. Anyone telling you that difference should be stamped out is stamping out life. Those people insisting that there are black and white answers to the difficult questions are stamping out the diversity that is inherent in life.”
― Letters to a Young Muslim
― Letters to a Young Muslim
“People are made of stories. Our memories are not the impartial accumulation of every second we’ve lived; they’re the narrative that we assembled out of selected moments. Which is why, even when we’ve experienced the same events as other individuals, we never constructed identical narratives: the criteria used for selecting moments were different for each of us, and a reflection of our personalities. Each of us noticed the details that caught our attention and remembered what was important to us, and the narratives we built shaped our personalities in turn. But, I wondered, if everyone remembered everything, would our differences get shaved away? What would happen to our sense of self? It seemed to me that a perfect memory couldn’t be a narrative any more than unedited security-cam footage could be a feature film. ·”
― The Truth of Fact, The Truth of Feeling
― The Truth of Fact, The Truth of Feeling
Philip’s 2024 Year in Books
Take a look at Philip’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
805 books
|
49 friends
1,645 books
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63 friends
242 books
|
54 friends
286 books
|
71 friends
294 books
|
152 friends
56 books
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165 friends
114 books
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102 friends
371 books
|
43 friends
More friends…
Favorite Genres
Polls voted on by Philip
Lists liked by Philip
