
“One of the hardest tasks as a human being is knowing when to keep an open mind, and when not to.”
Source: Stay
“One of the hardest tasks as a human being is knowing when to keep an open mind, and when not to.”
Source: Stay
Source: Eat That Frog!: 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time
Source: On the Pragmatics of Communication, 1998, p. 21
“Our task is terrible, total, universal, and merciless destruction.”
Catechism of a Revolutionary (1869)
The Future of Ideas (2001)
Context: A time is marked not so much by ideas that are argued about as by ideas that are taken for granted. The character of an era hangs upon what needs no defense. Power runs with ideas that only the crazy would draw into doubt. The "taken for granted" is the test of sanity; "what everyone knows" is the line between us and them.
This means that sometimes a society gets stuck. Sometimes these unquestioned ideas interfere, as the cost of questioning becomes too great. In these times, the hardest task for social or political activists is to find a way to get people to wonder again about what we all believe is true. The challenge is to sow doubt.
“Yesterday's clarity is today's stupidity
The universe has dark and light, entrust oneself to change”
As quoted in Ikkyū and The Crazy Cloud Anthology : A Zen Poet of Medieval Japan (1986) by Sonja Arntzen.
Context: Natural, reckless, correct skill;
Yesterday's clarity is today's stupidity
The universe has dark and light, entrust oneself to change
One time, shade the eyes and gaze afar at the road of heaven.
"The Meaning of Jewish Existence" in The Torch (1950)
Context: The time for the kingdom may be far off, but the task is plain: to retain our share in God in spite of peril and contempt. There is a war to wage against the vulgar, the glorification of the absurd, a war that is incessant, universal. Loyal to the presence of the ultimate in the common, we may be able to make it clear that man is more than man, that in doing the finite he may perceive the infinite.
Kurt Lewin (1928) "Die Bedeutung der “psychischen Sättigung” für einige Probleme der Psychotechnik" [Significance of “mental satiation” for some problems of psychotechnics]. in: Psychotechnisches Zeitschrift, Vol 3, p. 186. as cited in: E. Demerouti et all. (2002) " From mental strain to burnout http://www.beanmanaged.com/doc/pdf/arnoldbakker/articles/articles_arnold_bakker_79.pdf"
1920s
“Hope, of all ills that men endure,
The only cheap and universal cure.”
The Mistress. For Hope; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).