Margot

“In reality, there is, perhaps, no one of our natural passions so hard to subdue as pride. Disguise it, struggle with it, beat it down, stifle it, mortify it as much as one pleases, it is still alive, and will every now and then peep out and show itself; you will see it, perhaps, often in this history; for, even if I could conceive that I had compleatly overcome it, I should probably be proud of my humility.”
― Benjamin Franklin, The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin

“I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve (or save) the world and a desire to enjoy (or savor) the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.”
― E. B. White

“The most important point in the research, however, shows that those who do not fear death, for whatever reason, tend to exhibit behavior that is more benevolent, accepting of others, cooperative, and caring about the environment. Essentially, this means that if we could all free our minds of the burden, of the terror we feel about death…” “Then we would find ourselves in a dramatically improved world.” “Precisely,” Katherine said. “To quote the great Czech psychiatrist Stanislav Grof, ‘The elimination of the fear of death transforms the individual’s way of being in the world.’ Grof believes that a radical inner transformation of consciousness might be our only hope of surviving the global crisis brought on by the Western mechanistic paradigm.”
― Dan Brown, The Secret of Secrets

“There is perhaps no one of our natural passions so hard to subdue as pride. Beat it down, stifle it, mortify it as much as one pleases, it is still alive. Even if I could conceive that I had completely overcome it, I should probably be proud of my humility. ”
― Benjamin Franklin