Essentially stupid people are dangerous and damaging because reasonable people find it difficult to imagine and understand unreasonable behaviour. An intelligent person may understand the logic of a bandit. The bandit's actions follow a pattern of rationality: nasty rationality, if you like, but still rationality....
«It takes years of working on yourself – He said – to achieve this special condition of freedom, of knowledge, of power, called ‘inner forgiveness’.» He emphasized this term with a particular inflection in His voice, which instantly struck me as quite different to the...
Traditionally Heracleitus was known as the "weeping philosopher" or "the obscure." He was, according to Plutarch, afflicted with terrible diseases. All that remains of his work are 139 fragments. Some of these are as obscure as his moniker would suggest: "Souls have a sense of...
Buddha was traveling through a forest. The day was hot — it was just midday — he felt thirsty, so he said to his disciple Ananda, “Go back. We crossed a little stream. You go back and bring, fetch, some water for me.” Ananda went back,...
Once upon a time, there was an owl that made it to the forest, having previously been in captivity, and he recounted to all the other animals the customs and practices followed by humans. He explained, for example, that men in the city ranked and...
And of all these, the one which makes us the most directly happy is a genial flow of good spirits; for this excellent quality is its own immediate reward. The man who is cheerful and merry has always a good reason for being so —...
Looking at it from the standpoint of values it becomes evident that narcissism conflicts with reason and with love. This statement hardly needs further elaboration. By the very nature of the narcissistic orientation, it prevents one—to the extent to which it exists—from seeing reality as...
A controversy prevailed among the beasts of the field as to which of the animals deserved the most credit for producing the greatest number of whelps at a birth. They rushed clamorously into the presence of the Lioness and demanded of her the settlement of...
And though nobody should read me, have I wasted time in entertaining myself so many idle hours in so pleasing and useful thoughts? In moulding this figure upon myself, I have been so often constrained to temper and compose myself in a right posture, that...
Society does not want you to be a man of heart. Society needs heads, not hearts. I was visiting India's greatest university, in Varanasi, and one of the most famous scholars, Doctor Hajari Prasad Dwivedi, was presiding at the meeting I was going to address. He...
