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Kindle Notes & Highlights
‘We use other people’s feet when we go out, we use other people’s eyes to recognise things, we use another person’s memory to greet people, we use someone else’s help to stay alive – the only things we keep for ourselves are our pleasures,’
The right to express yourself still leaves you with the need to decide what to say, to find someone to listen, and to make your words sound beautiful; these are skills which need to be acquired.
The fact that the world has become fuller than ever of complexity of every kind may suggest at first that it is harder to find a way out of our dilemmas, but in reality the more complexities, the more crevices there are through which we can crawl.
Five hundred years ago, Europe underwent a Renaissance, as a result of four new encounters, imbibing four new stimulants, expanding its horizons. First, it revived forgotten memories of freedom and beauty.
Secondly, in the Renaissance, Europe and America were betrothed, with the help of new technology; but it was more a geographical discovery of a continent than a discovery by humans of each other as persons;
The Renaissance, thirdly, was based on a new idea of the importance of the individual. But this was a fragile foundation, because individuals depended on constant applause and admiration to sustain them. There is a shortage of applause in the world, and there is not enough respect to go round.
