“Embarrassment is the greatest teacher, but since its lessons are exactly those we have tried hardest to conceal from ourselves, it may teach us, also, to perfect our self-deception.”
#373
Vectors: Aphorisms and Ten Second Essays (2001)
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James Richardson 89
American poet 1950Related quotes

Letter to Thomas Law (13 June 1814)
1810s
Context: Self-interest, or rather self-love, or egoism, has been more plausibly substituted as the basis of morality. But I consider our relations with others as constituting the boundaries of morality. With ourselves, we stand on the ground of identity, not of relation, which last, requiring two subjects, excludes self-love confined to a single one. To ourselves, in strict language, we can owe no duties, obligation requiring also two parties. Self-love, therefore, is no part of morality. Indeed, it is exactly its counterpart.

Source: Défense des Lettres [In Defense of Letters] (1937), p. 43

Source: Books, Spiritual Warrior, Volume I: Uncovering Spiritual Truths in Psychic Phenomena (Hari-Nama Press, 1996), Chapter 3: Angels and Demigods, p. 55
Source: The Social History of Art, Volume IV. Naturalism, impressionism, the film age, 1999, Chapter 1. Naturalism and Impressionism

“No teacher has ever been better prepared to teach a lesson.”
As quoted in American Heroes of Exploration and Flight (1996) by Anne E. Schraff, p. 102

Translation from the Dhammapada of Gautama Buddha, as translated in The Dharma, or The Religion of Enlightenment; An Exposition of Buddhism (1896)