A strong desire for freedom usually begins in adolescence. All kids, at some time or another, begin to feel constrained and a little persecuted. Parents try to shape and protect their children, but kids reach a point when they resent them for it. They rebel, even if it means hurting themselves...
When we say, then, that pleasure is the end and aim, we do not mean the pleasures of the prodigal or the pleasures of sensuality, as we are understood to do by some through ignorance, prejudice, or willful misrepresentation. By pleasure we mean the absence...
You who caught the turtles better eat them, goes the ancient adage. The origin of the expression is as follows. It was said that a group of fishermen caught a large number of turtles. After cooking them, they found out at the communal meal that these sea animals were...
“I really live ” truly means that I am who I am.Independently and beyond who you are and what you expect from me.Your presence completes me and ensures me, however, it does not define me. “I really live ” means, precisely, that I leave behind all...
Once upon a time, I, Zhuangzi, dreamt I was a butterfly, fluttering hither and thither, to all intents and purposes a butterfly. I was conscious only of my happiness as a butterfly, unaware that I was Zhuangzi. Soon I awakened, and there I was, veritably...
“Where is everybody, Sullivan?” he asked silently, quite at home now with the easy telepathy that these gulls used instead of screes and gracks. “Why aren’t there more of us here? Why, where I came from there were ...
No one of these will force you to die, but all will teach you how to die; no one of these will wear out your years, but each will add his own years to yours; conversations with no one of these will bring you peril,...
When we die and we go to heaven, and we meet our Maker, our Maker is not going to say to us, why didn't you become a messiah? Why didn't you discover the cure for such and such? The only thing we're going to be...
Procrastination is the tendency to delay unpleasant but important acts: the arduous trek to the gym, switching to a cheaper insurance policy, writing thankyou letters. Even New Year’s resolutions won’t help you here. Procrastination is idiotic because no project completes itself. We know that these tasks...
Wretched are they that mourn, for they already have the miserable habit of mourning. Fortunate are they that know that suffering is not a crown of glory. It sufficeth not to be the last in order to someday be the first. Happy are they that do not insist...
