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After all, a talent is something you use, not something that uses you. The talent you cannot not use, the talent that possesses you—that is a hazard, I must confess.
Talent
We were not a people who charged into war at the beck and call of bugle or trumpet. No, we fought to the tunes of love songs, for we were the Italians of Asia.
Soldiers
is always better to admire the best among our foes rather than the worst among our friends.
Admiration
“East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,”
East and West
ORIENT OCCIDENT self-effacing occasionally opinionated respectful of authority sometimes independent worried about others’ opinions now and then carefree usually quiet talkative (with a drink or two) always trying to please once or twice have not given a damn teacup is half empty glass is half full say yes when I mean no say what I mean, do what I say almost always look to the past once in a while look to the future prefer to follow yet yearn to lead comfortable in a crowd but ready to take the stage deferential to elders value my youth self-sacrificial live to fight another day follow my
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we soaped ourselves in sadness and we rinsed ourselves with hope, and for all that we believed almost every rumor we heard, almost all of us refused to believe that our nation was dead.
tragedy was not the conflict between right and wrong but right and right,
Tragedy
spy. A spy’s task is not to hide himself where no one can see him, since he will not be able to see anything himself. A spy’s task is to hide where everyone can see him and where he can see everything. Now ask yourself: What can everyone see about you but you yourself cannot?
Spy
They owned the means of production, and therefore the means of representation, and the best that we could ever hope for was to get a word in edgewise before our anonymous deaths.
Napoleon said men will die for bits of ribbon pinned to their chests, but the General understands that even more men will die for a man who remembered their names, as he does theirs. When he inspects them, he walks among them, eats with them, calls them by their names and asks about wives, children, girlfriends, hometowns. All anyone ever wants is to be recognized and remembered.
Wars never die, I said. They just go to sleep.
Death Of wars?
invisible hand of the market should wear the kid glove of socialism.
I was in close quarters with some representative specimens of the most dangerous creature in the history of the world, the white man in a suit.
one way to understand a person’s character is to understand what he thinks of others, especially those like oneself.
Americans on the average do not trust intellectuals, but they are cowed by power and stunned by celebrity.
“Wherever the standard of freedom and independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be . . . She”—America—”is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all.”
Love is being able to talk to someone else without effort, without hiding, and at the same time to feel absolutely comfortable not saying a word. At least that’s one way I’ve figured out how to describe love.
Love
Some animals could see in the dark, but it was only humans who deliberately sought out every possible route into the darkness of our own interiors.
Men of science must never give up hope, least of all when operating on the mind. As we can neither see nor touch his mind, all we can do is help the patient see his own mind by keeping him awake, until he can observe himself as someone else. This is most crucial, for we are the ones most able to know ourselves and yet the most unable to know ourselves. It’s as if our noses are pressed up against the pages of a book, the words right in front of us but which we cannot read. Just as distance is needed for legibility, so it is that if we could only split ourselves in two and gain some distance
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while nothing is more precious than independence and freedom, nothing is also more precious than independence and freedom! These two slogans are almost the same, but not quite.
