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“Salvation must grow out of understanding, total understanding can follow only from total experience, and experience must be won by the laborious discipline of shaping one’s absolute attention.”
― The Divine Comedy
― The Divine Comedy
“Only someone who is well prepared has the opportunity to improvise.”
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“Let mystery have its place in you; do not be always turning up your whole soil with the plowshare of self-examination, but leave a little fallow corner in your heart ready for any seed the winds may bring, and reserve a nook of shadow for the passing bird; keep a place in your heart for the unexpected guests, an altar for the unknown God. Then if a bird sing among your branches, do not be too eager to tame it. If you are conscious of something new - thought or feeling, wakening in the depths of your being - do not be in a hurry to let in light upon it, to look at it; let the springing germ have the protection of being forgotten, hedge it round with quiet, and do not break in upon its darkness.”
― Amiel's Journal
― Amiel's Journal
“It does little good to forecast the future of semiconductors or energy, or the future of the family (even one's own family), if the forecast springs from the premise that everything else will remain unchanged. For nothing will remain unchanged. The future is fluid, not frozen. It is constructed by our shifting and changing daily decisions, and each event influences all others.”
― Third Wave
― Third Wave
“Individuals need life structure. A life lacking in comprehensible structure is an aimless wreck. The absence of structure breeds breakdown.
Structure provides the relatively fixed points of reference we need. That is why, for many people, a job is crucial psychologically, over and above the paycheck. By making clear demands on their time and energy, it provides an element of structure around which the rest of their lives can be organized. The absolute demands imposed on a parent by an infant, the responsibility to care for an invalid, the tight discipline demanded by membership in a church or, in some countries, a political party — all these may also impose a simple structure on life.”
― Third Wave
Structure provides the relatively fixed points of reference we need. That is why, for many people, a job is crucial psychologically, over and above the paycheck. By making clear demands on their time and energy, it provides an element of structure around which the rest of their lives can be organized. The absolute demands imposed on a parent by an infant, the responsibility to care for an invalid, the tight discipline demanded by membership in a church or, in some countries, a political party — all these may also impose a simple structure on life.”
― Third Wave
Quotes
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Your favourite quotes: from books, from movies, from your RPs, your writing and your life.
Memoirs and Biographies We Love
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A place to share memoirs, biographies, autobiographies (and maybe even fiction-based-in-reality) that you have enjoyed!
Biographies & Memoirs of Other Generations
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A place to share our favourite books about people who mostly made their mark pre-1960. Please add yours to the list! And please do comment on your fav ...more
Magdalena’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Magdalena’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
54 books
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66 friends
5,122 books
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537 friends
974 books
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66 friends
636 books
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251 friends
482 books
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108 friends
1,255 books
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194 friends
255 books
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34 friends
148 books
|
336 friends
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