Star

“Egotism is but the perversion of spiritual being. Ambition is the inversion of spiritual power. Passion is the distortion of love. The mortal is the limitation of the immortal. When these false images give place to true, then the spiritual man stands forth luminous, as the sun, when the clouds disperse. 4.”
― Patañjali, The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali: the Book of the Spiritual Man

“Let us then suppose the mind to be, as we say, white paper void of all characters, without any ideas. How comes it to be furnished? Whence comes it by that vast store which the busy and boundless fancy of man has painted on it with an almost endless variety? Whence has it all the materials of reason and knowledge? To this I answer, in one word, from EXPERIENCE.”
― Steven Pinker, The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature

“Therefore the best fortress is to be found in the love of the people, for although you may have fortresses they will not save you if you are hated by the people.”
― Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince

“Nothing invests life with more meaning than the realisation that every moment of sentience is a precious gift”
― Steven Pinker, The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature