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Meditations
by
it is very possible to be a divine man and to be recognised as such by no one.
“West Point Academy is training for war. It seems that if a person has internalized the basic precepts of battle theory, such as "think quickly and act without hesitation," that person would scarcely be qualified for the intensive and thorough theoretical and practical thinking necessary for the highly complex job of civil engineering projects.”
― Dams and Other Disasters: A Century of the Army Corps of Engineers in Civil Works
― Dams and Other Disasters: A Century of the Army Corps of Engineers in Civil Works
“The days when engineers had exclusive authority over engineering decisions are long gone.”
― Degrees of Belief: Subjective Probability and Engineering Judgment
― Degrees of Belief: Subjective Probability and Engineering Judgment
“I looked at the slum children dancing like a movie chorus and capering like temple monkeys. I was teaching some of those children to speak, read, and write English. Already, with just the little they'd learned in three months, a few of them were winning work from foreign tourists. Were those children, I wondered, the mice that fed from my hand? Would their trusting innocence be seized by a fate that wouldn't and couldn't have been theirs without me, without my intervention in their lives? What wounds and torments awaited Tariq simply because I'd befriended and taught him?”
― Shantaram
― Shantaram
“You know,' she said slowly, 'I like you, Lin.'
She stared that green fire into me. I felt myself reddening slightly, not from embarrassment, but from shame, that she'd said so easily the very words, I like you, that I wouldn't let myself say to her.
'You do?' I asked, trying to make the question sound more casual than it was. I watched her lips close in a thin smile.
'Yes. You're a good listener. That's dangerous, because it's so hard to resist. Being listened to - really listened to - is the second-best thing in the world.'
'What's the first best thing?'
'Everybody knows that. The best thing in the world is power.'
'Oh, is it?' I asked, laughing. 'What about sex?'
'No. Apart from biology, sex is all about power.”
― Shantaram
She stared that green fire into me. I felt myself reddening slightly, not from embarrassment, but from shame, that she'd said so easily the very words, I like you, that I wouldn't let myself say to her.
'You do?' I asked, trying to make the question sound more casual than it was. I watched her lips close in a thin smile.
'Yes. You're a good listener. That's dangerous, because it's so hard to resist. Being listened to - really listened to - is the second-best thing in the world.'
'What's the first best thing?'
'Everybody knows that. The best thing in the world is power.'
'Oh, is it?' I asked, laughing. 'What about sex?'
'No. Apart from biology, sex is all about power.”
― Shantaram
“Khaderbhai once said that every virtuous act is inspired by a dark secret. It mightn't be true of everyone, but it was true enough for me. The little good that I've done in the world has always dragged behind it a shadow of dark sinpiraction. What I do know now, and didn't know then is that , in the long run, motive matters more with good deeds than it does with bad. When all the guilt and shame for the bad we've done have run their course, it's the good we did that can save us. But then, when salvation speaks, the secrets we kept, and the motives we concealed, creep from their shadows. They cling to us, those dark motives for our good deeds. Redemption's climb is steepest if the good we did is soiled with secret shame.”
― Shantaram
― Shantaram
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