“He is happy, whose circumstances suit his temper; but he is more excellent, who can suit his temper to any circumstances.” — David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals

“Accepting life means opening ourselves up to uncertainty and the vast range of possibilities it offers. While things could go wrong, they could also go right, especially in ways we cannot anticipate.” Read more: suliqyre.substack.com/p/to-accept-...

“To Accept Life”, etc. (391-395)

Acceptance means seeing ourselves as always-changing, as beings capable of becoming more than we already are.

suliqyre.substack.com

“Descartes says precisely as do the Greek skeptics, that error has its root in the will, which is over-hasty in drawing conclusions. This also throws light on faith; when faith resolves to believe it runs the risk of committing itself to an error, but it nevertheless believes. (1/2)

“Things have their seasons, and even certain kinds of eminence go in and out of style. But wisdom has an advantage: she is eternal. If this is not her century, many others will be.” — Baltasar Gracián, The Art of Worldly Wisdom

“These days I am in a super-acute, a hyped-up life. It never goes to sleep. And yet all the events of this hyped-up life seem to be cut from the hyperdream. All of them turn up accompanied by a voice that murmurs to my heart “it’s not going to last.” — Hélène Cixous, Hyperdream

“Nothing can be created out of nothing.” — Lucretius, On the Nature of Things

“We have the tendency to believe that criticizing an artwork might cause it irreparable harm. But what is valuable in an artwork can no more be harmed by language than nature or humanity or the universe itself.” Read more: suliqyre.com/posts/invinc...

“For the man who studies to gain insight, books and studies are merely rungs of the ladder on which he climbs to the summit of knowledge. As soon as a rung has raised him up one step, he leaves it behind. On the other hand, the many who study in order to fill their memory (1/2)

“It is one of the chief skills of the philosopher not to occupy himself with questions which do not concern him.” — Ludwig Wittgenstein, Notebooks, 1914-1916

“Ever since sentences started to circulate in brains devoted to reflection, an effort at total identification has been made, because with the aid of a copula each sentence ties one thing to another; (1/2)

“Not to know what happened before you were born is to be a child forever. For what is the time of a man, except it be interwoven with that memory of ancient things of a superior age?” — Cicero, Orator Ad M. Brutum

“I want to know that things are not as bad as they seem. I want to be able to see a way out of the difficulty. But what I instead discover is that the situation truly is bad and it's likely to get worse.” Read more: suliqyre.com/posts/findin...

“The chief reason warfare is still with us is neither a secret death-wish of the human species, nor an irrepressible instinct of aggression, nor, finally and more plausibly, the serious economic and social dangers inherent in disarmament, (1/2)

“Love of bustle is not industry – it is only the restlessness of a hunted mind.” — Seneca, Moral Letters to Lucilius

“Life is a miracle beyond our comprehension, and we should reverence it even where we have to struggle against it.” — Rachel Carson, Silent Spring

“Man is tormented by no greater anxiety than to find someone quickly to whom he can hand over that great gift of freedom with which the ill-fated creature is born.” — Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

“This isn't your fault. You didn't ask for this power, you had it thrust upon you. But you have to work with the lot you've been given. You have to learn to live in a way that doesn't produce so much pain and suffering.” Read more: suliqyre.substack.com/p/a-better-h...

“A Better Human”, etc. (386-390)

You've been given too much power and you don't know how to use it.

suliqyre.substack.com

“An individual lives in a situation of falsehood; the falsehood is violence, tyranny: shall I tell the truth in order to free the victim? (1/2)

“Worldly faces never look so worldly as at a funeral.” — George Eliot, Scenes of Clerical Life

“Great sacrifices are not backed up. Martyrs are forgotten. They rise up and all eyes are on them. Once they have fallen, the newspapers go on.” — Albert Camus, Notebooks, 1942-1951

“The heat demands action. It is telling his body to get up and do something. But he cannot figure out what.” Read more: suliqyre.com/posts/overhe...

“Spirit is whatever is so unfamiliar and unmanageable that we begin to wonder whether our "language" is "adequate" to it. Our wonder, stripped of mirror-imagery, is simply about whether somebody or something may not be dealing with the world in terms for which (1/2)

“He who dares not offend cannot be honest.” — Thomas Paine, The Writings of Thomas Paine

“To write is, moreover, to withdraw language from the world, to detach it from what makes it a power according to which, when I speak, it is the world that declares itself, the clear light of day that develops through tasks undertaken, through action and time.” — Maurice Blanchot

“The human faculties of perception, judgment, discriminative feeling, mental activity, and even moral preference, are exercised only in making a choice. He who does anything because it is the custom, makes no choice.” — John Stuart Mill, On Liberty

“Awareness might be thought of as a kind of memory we have formed. But unlike the memories we can directly recall and explore, awareness only reaches us through intuitions that arise from it.” Read more: suliqyre.com/posts/experi...

“The theories about progress and the “genius which always pierces through”, arise from the fact that it is intolerable to suppose that what is most precious in the world should be given over to chance. (1/2)

“Do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson, Journals (1822–1863)

“That, as of old, was the writer’s job, maybe his primary job. To show us the futures we didn’t want, and the futures we could have if we wanted.” — Ursula K. Le Guin, The Last Interview and Other Conversations

“It has an unhappy effect upon the human understanding and temper, for a man to be compelled in his gravest investigation of an argument, to consider, not what is true, but what is convenient.” — William Godwin, The Life of Geoffrey Chaucer