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Michael Allen
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“In a society in which the dream of success has been drained of any meaning beyond itself, men have nothing against which to measure their achievements except the achievements of others.”
― The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations
― The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations
“Man proceeds in the fog. But when he looks back to judge people of the past, he sees no fog on their path. From his present, which was their faraway future, their path looks perfectly clear to him, good visibility all the way. Looking back, he sees the path, he sees the people proceeding, he sees their mistakes, but not the fog.”
― Testaments Betrayed: An Essay in Nine Parts
― Testaments Betrayed: An Essay in Nine Parts
“Let the youthful soul look back on life with the question: what have you truly loved up to now, what has elevated your soul, what has mastered it and at the same time delighted it? Place these venerated objects before you in a row, and perhaps they will yield for you, through their nature and their sequence, a law, the fundamental law of your true self…for your true nature lies, not hidden deep within you, but immeasurably high above you, or at least above that which you normally take to be yourself.”
― Untimely Meditations
― Untimely Meditations
“Only the wounded physician heals... and then only to the extent he has healed himself.”
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“[F]or your true nature lies, not concealed deep within you, but immeasurably high above you, or at least above that which you usually take yourself to be. Your true educators and formative teachers reveal to you what the true basic material of your being is, something in itself ineducable and in any case difficult of access, bound and paralysed: your educators can be only your liberators. That is the secret of all culture: it does not provide artificial limbs, wax noses or spectacles — that which can provide these things is, rather, only sham education. Culture is liberation, the removal of all the weeds, rubble and vermin that want to attack the tender buds of the plant.”
― Untimely Meditations
― Untimely Meditations
Michael’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Michael’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
950 books
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175 friends
602 books
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340 friends
127 books
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32 friends
557 books
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5 friends
83 books
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8 friends
6 books
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109 friends
418 books
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76 friends
116 books
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72 friends
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