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“It’s like the Federal Reserve,” Alex had said, “except secret and with people who are smart.”
“The burning conviction that we have a holy duty toward others is often a way of attaching our drowning selves to a passing raft. What looks like giving a hand is often a holding on for dear life. Take away our holy duties and you leave our lives puny and meaningless. There is no doubt that in exchanging a self-centered for a selfless life we gain enormously in self-esteem. The vanity of the selfless, even those who practice utmost humility, is boundless.”
― The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements
― The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements
“Those who see their lives as spoiled and wasted crave equality and fraternity more than they do freedom. If they clamor for freedom, it is but freedom to establish equality and uniformity. The passion for equality is partly a passion for anonymity: to be one thread of the many which make up a tunic; one thread not distinguishable from the others.12 No one can then point us out, measure us against others and expose our inferiority. They”
― The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements
― The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements
“We each have a unique way of looking at the world. Our personal world view has been shaped by the things that have happened to us as children and as adults. It has been shaped by the points of view put forward by the people who have influenced us over the years. It has been shaped by our disappointments, our victories and our defeats. Our experience has meant we have developed coping mechanisms that enable us to survive. For me to believe that I can understand you so well that I can even understand your coping mechanisms is arrogant beyond belief.”
― Dispelling the Myths and Rediscovering the Lost Art of Listening
― Dispelling the Myths and Rediscovering the Lost Art of Listening
“The idea that you have to be protected from any kind of uncomfortable emotion is what I absolutely do not subscribe to.”
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“However, the freedom the masses crave is not freedom of self-expression and self-realization, but freedom from the intolerable burden of an autonomous existence. They want freedom from “the fearful burden of free choice,”19 freedom from the arduous responsibility of realizing their ineffectual selves and shouldering the blame for the blemished product. They do not want freedom of conscience, but faith—blind, authoritarian faith. They sweep away the old order not to create a society of free and independent men, but to establish uniformity, individual anonymity and a new structure of perfect unity. It”
― The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements
― The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements
John’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at John’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
284 books
|
25 friends
1,058 books
|
41 friends
0 books
|
24 friends
26 books
|
5 friends
18 books
|
15 friends
0 books
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2 friends
1 book
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14 friends
58 books
|
49 friends
More friends…
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