People have invented a thousand and one ways to escape from themselves. And they have to invent them because they have created an ugly idea of themselves. To tell them “Know thyself!” is to shock them. They don’t want to know themselves. So people like Socrates...
Are we free to be who we really are? The answer is no, we are not free. True freedom has to do with the human spirit — it is the freedom to be who we really are. Who stops us from being free? We blame...
The Chinese have phrase "Masquerading as a swine to kill the tiger." This refers to an ancient hunting technique in which the hunter clothes himself in the hide and out of a pig, and mimics its grunting. The mighty tiger thinks a pig is coming...
One day, Sinclair got up, as he always did, at seven o’clock in the morning. Like he did each day, he shuffled to the bathroom in his slippers and, after his shower, shaved and put on cologne. He dressed in fashionable clothes, as was his...
Who are you? How do you describe yourself? To answer these two questions, you will very likely have to refer to your own history, to a past that has been lived through, but to which you are undoubtedly tied, and from which you find it...
With the agreeable thought that, thank God, he had no private practice now, and that no one would interrupt him, Andrey Yefimitch sat down to the table immediately on reaching home and took up a book. He read a great deal and always with enjoyment. Half...
Love is the active concern for the life and the growth of that which we love. Where this active concern is lacking, there is no love. This element of love has been beautifully described in the book of Jonah. God has told Jonah to go...
A king went to his garden and discovered that his trees, bushes and flowers were dying. The Oak told him that it was dying because it could not be as tall as the Pine. Getting back to the Pine, he found it drooping because it...
Some people are not only obtuse, but they won’t even let you help them,” I complained. Tubs made himself comfortable and began: Once there was a little shack—a hovel, really—on the outskirts of the city. In the front was a little workshop with a few tools...
For more than five years I maintained myself thus solely by the labor of my hands, and I found, that by working about six weeks in a year, I could meet all the expenses of living. The whole of my winters, as well as most...
