More than 20 years ago, President Kennedy defined an approach that is as valid today as when he announced it. So let us not be blind to our differences,'' he said, but let us also direct attention to our common interests and to the means by which those differences can be resolved.''Well, those differences are differences in governmental structure and philosophy. The common interests have to do with the things of everyday life for people everywhere. Just suppose with me for a moment that an Ivan and an Anya could find themselves, oh, say, in a waiting room, or sharing a shelter from the rain or a storm with a Jim and Sally, and there was no language barrier to keep them from getting acquainted. Would they then debate the differences between their respective governments? Or would they find themselves comparing notes about their children and what each other did for a living?Before they parted company, they would probably have touched on ambitions and hobbies and what they wanted for their children and problems of making ends meet. And as they went their separate ways, maybe Anya would be saying to Ivan, Wasn't she nice? She also teaches music.'' Or Jim would be telling Sally what Ivan did or didn't like about his boss. They might even have decided they were all going to get together for dinner some evening soon. Above all, they would have proven that people don't make wars.People want to raise their children in a world without fear and without war. They want to have some of the good things over and above bare subsistence that make life worth living. They want to work at some craft, trade, or profession that gives them satisfaction and a sense of worth. Their common interests cross all borders.
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If you sincerely desire a _truly_ well-rounded education, you must study the extremists, the obscure and 'nutty'. You need the balance! Your poor brain is already being impregnated with middle-of-the-road crap, twenty-four hours a day, _no matter what_. Network TV, newspapers, radio, magazines at the supermarket... even if you never watch, read, listen, or leave your house, even if you are deaf and blind, the _telepathic pressure alone_ of the uncountable normals surrounding you will insure that you are automatically well- grounded in consensus reality.
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It takes more time and effort and delicacy to learn the silence of a people than to learn its sounds. Some people have a special gift for this. Perhaps this explains why some missionaries, notwithstanding their efforts, never come to speak properly, to communicate delicately through silences. Although they speak with the accent of natives they remain forever thousands of miles away. The learning of the grammar of silence is an art much more difficult to learn than the grammar of sounds.
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Belonging to oneself—the whole essence of life lies in that.
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What's terrible is that there's nothing terrible, that the very essence of life is petty, uninteresting, and degradingly trite.
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Life deceives everyone except the individual who doesn't contemplate it, the individual who demands nothing from it, the individual who serene...
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Tempered, gradual animation, the methodical restrain of sensations and energies, the equilibrium of sickness and health in each creature—thi...
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Art, if one employs this term in the broad sense that includes poetry within its realm, is an art of creation laden with ideals, located at th...
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The public school has become the established church of secular society.
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Greed is all right, by the way I think greed is healthy. You can be greedy and still feel good about yourself.
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As for work, without it, without painstaking work, any writer or artist definitely remains a dilettante; there's no point in waiting for so-ca...
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Death's an old joke, but each individual encounters it anew.
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There's something tragic in the fate of almost every person—it's just that the tragic is often concealed from a person by the banal surface ...
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What can I wish to the youth of my country who devote themselves to science? ...Thirdly, passion. Remember that science demands from a man all his life. If you had two lives that would not be enough for you. Be passionate in your work and in your searching.
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At the moment of death I hope to be surprised.
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Most people can't understand how others can blow their noses differently than they do.
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In the end, nature is inexorable: it has no reason to hurry and, sooner or later, it takes what belongs to it. Unconsciously and inflexibly ob...
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You may live a long while with some people and be on friendly terms with them and never speak openly with them from your soul.
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Perfect as the wing of a bird may be, it will never enable the bird to fly if unsupported by the air. Facts are the air of science. Without them a man of science can never rise.
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Modern medicine is a negation of health. It isn't organized to serve human health, but only itself, as an institution. It makes more people sick than it heals.
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Nature creates while destroying, and doesn't care whether it creates or destroys—as long as life isn't extinguished, as long as death doesn'...
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However much you knock at nature's door, she will never answer you in comprehensible words.
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'Modern medicine is a negation of health. It isn't organised to serve human health, but only to serve itself as an institution. It makes more people sick than it heals.'
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I share no man's opinions; I have my own.
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Resolve to make each day the very best and don't let anyone get in your way. If they do, step on them.
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What you believe is wrong. My opinion is fact.
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I knew that this would happen.
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