“A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere. Before him I may think aloud. I am arrived at last in the presence of a man so real and equal, that I may drop even those undermost garments of dissimulation, courtesy, and second thought, which men never put off, and may deal with him with the simplicity and wholeness with which one chemical atom meets another.”
― Essays, First Series
― Essays, First Series
“I don’t feel that it is necessary to know exactly what I am. The main interest in life and work is to become someone else that you were not in the beginning. If you knew when you began a book what you would say at the end, do you think that you would have the courage to write it?
What is true for writing and for love relationships is true also for life. The game is worthwhile insofar as we don’t know where it will end.”
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What is true for writing and for love relationships is true also for life. The game is worthwhile insofar as we don’t know where it will end.”
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“What strikes me is the fact that in our society, art has become something which is related only to objects and not to individuals, or to life. That art is something which is specialized or which is done by experts who are artists. But couldn't everyone's life become a work of art? Why should the lamp or the house be an art object, but not our life?”
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“I don't write a book so that it will be the final word; I write a book so that other books are possible, not necessarily written by me.”
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“The 'Enlightenment', which discovered the liberties, also invented the disciplines.”
― Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison
― Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison
Mina’s 2024 Year in Books
Take a look at Mina’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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