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“Truth is the only foundation upon which an indispensable ethics can be built. For no one can seek the good without defining it. All hope rests on knowledge. And no society can respect man without knowing what is specifically human.”
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“If one disagrees with the nomadism and violence of our society, then one is under an obligation to take up some permanent dwelling place and cultivate the possibility of peace and harmlessness in it. If one deplores the destructiveness and wastefulness of the economy then one is under an obligation to live as far out on the margin of the economy as one is able: to be economically independent of exploitive industries, to learn to need less, to waste less, to make things last, to give up meaningless luxuries, to understand and resist the language of salesmen and public relations experts, to see through attractive packages, to refuse to purchase fashion or glamour or prestige. If one feels endangered by meaninglessness, then one is under an obligation to resist meaningless pleasure and to resist meaningless work, and to give up the moral comfort and the excuses of the mentality of specialization.”
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“From man's very beginning until the nineteenth century, the meaning of existence depended entirely on a specific understanding of the human condition. Because man understood himself to be tormented by the contradictions between his imperative needs and his incapacity to fulfill them entirely, he could devote his existence not to "accomplishing" in any complete sense what could never be perfectly accomplished, but to bearing witness to the legitimacy of his hopes through modest, less-than-perfect achievements. The meaning of existence hinged on the permanent presence of the opposition, or antimony, between good and evil, need and scarcity, power and freedom: in other words, on the perception of these oppositions as figures of human existence, or even as forms of our condition. In seeking a life beyond the inevitability of death, in seeking good beyond the inevitability of evil, existence acquired meaning. These figures of our condition, because of their persistence, in fact immortalized meaning”
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Yvonne’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Yvonne’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
1,399 books
|
286 friends
289 books
|
15 friends
432 books
|
43 friends
118 books
|
6 friends
476 books
|
46 friends
438 books
|
95 friends
92 books
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4 friends
125 books
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3 friends
More friends…
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