Jiwon Kim

“The person who feels homesick for land, in other words, who wishes for some stable ground to stand upon, some externally imposed constraint to guide him in his choice, this person is simply not strong enough, in Nietzsche's view, to experience the joy of infinite freedom.
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But what if this is impossible for human beings? What if our very humanness sets limitations to the way we can experience ourselves and our world? What if it isn't possible to create meaning or find a sense of the sacred ex nihilo without some kind of contraints? In such a world, as Melville understood, grim perseverance is possible for a while; but in the end suicide is the only choice.”
― All Things Shining, Dreyfus and Sean Dorrance Kelly

“We do not have to know everything about something in order to understand it; too many facts are often as much of an obstacle to understand­ ing as too few. There is a sense in which we modems are inun­ dated with facts to the detriment of understanding.”
― Mortimer Jerome Adler, How to read a bookthe art of getting a liberal education

“Luther’s story reminds us that not every kind of mental, spiritual, or psychological effect can be achieved by dint of hard work and control. Like falling asleep, some spiritual tasks require a more glancing approach. But Wallace is not alone in thinking that self-control is the key. Western culture in the twentieth century can be read, in part, as a series of responses to the death of God—to the death in the culture, in other words, of a grounded, public, and shared sense that there is a single, unquestioned set of virtues—Judeo-Christian virtues—in accordance with which one’s life is properly led.”
― Hubert Dreyfus Sean Dorrance Kelly, All Things Shining: Reading the Western Classics to Find Meaning in a Secular Age by Hubert Dreyfus Sean Dorrance Kelly

“THERE ARE AT LEAST two kinds of people who manage to avoid the contemporary burden of choice, but in the wrong way. First, there is the man of self-confidence (usually it is a man). He plunges forth assuredly into every action he takes. He presents the world as obvious— “How could anyone wonder about the right move here?” he seems to ask—and in certain cases his assurance draws others along with him.

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THERE IS A SECOND WAY to avoid the contemporary burden of choice, but it is at least as unattractive as the path of manufac- tured confidence. We are thinking here of the person who makes no choices about how to act because he is enslaved by obsessions, infatuations, or addictions. Such a person is, it is true, drawn by something beyond himself to act in the way he does.”
― Hubert Dreyfus Sean Dorrance Kelly, All Things Shining: Reading the Western Classics to Find Meaning in a Secular Age by Hubert Dreyfus Sean Dorrance Kelly