“One can write, think and pray exclusively of others; dreams are all egocentric.”

—  Evelyn Waugh

Diary entry (5 October 1962)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Sept. 13, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "One can write, think and pray exclusively of others; dreams are all egocentric." by Evelyn Waugh?
Evelyn Waugh photo
Evelyn Waugh 123
British writer 1903–1966

Related quotes

Peter Sloterdijk photo

“Bourgeois morality tries to maintain an illusion of altruism, whereas in all other areas bourgeois thinking has long since assumed a theoretical as well as an economic egocentrism.”

Peter Sloterdijk (1947) German philosopher

Source: Kritik der zynischen Vernunft [Critique of Cynical Reason] (1983), p. 45

Ricardo Baccay photo

“I ask you to pray for me as I exercise my being a father to you all, be assured that I will do my best to serve you all to the exclusion of no one.”

Ricardo Baccay (1961)

Baccay installed as new Tuguegarao archbishop http://usl.edu.ph/baccay-installed-as-new-tuguegarao-archbishop/ (January 28, 2020)

A.A. Milne photo

“I think we dream so we don’t have to be apart for so long. If we’re in each other’s dreams, we can be together all the time.”

A.A. Milne book Winnie-the-Pooh

Source: Winnie-the-Pooh

Gaston Bachelard photo

“A word is a bud attempting to become a twig. How can one not dream while writing? It is the pen which dreams. The blank page gives the right to dream.”

Gaston Bachelard (1884–1962) French writer and philosopher

Introduction, sect. 6
La poétique de la rêverie (The Poetics of Reverie) (1960)

“I think we dream so we don't have to be apart so long. If we're in each other's dreams, we can play together all night.”

Bill Watterson (1958) American comic artist
Christopher Hitchens photo

“The man who prays is the one who thinks that god has arranged matters all wrong, but who also thinks that he can instruct god how to put them right.”

Christopher Hitchens Mortality

Source: Mortality

Slavoj Žižek photo

“…Tibetan prayer wheels: you write a prayer on a paper, put the rolled paper on a wheel, and turn it automatically, without thinking. In this way, the wheel itself is praying for me, instead of me - or more precisely, I myself am praying through the medium of the wheel. The beauty of it all is that in my psychological inferiority I can think about whatever I want, I can yield to the most dirty and obscene fantasies, and it does not matter because - to use a good old Stalinist expression - 'whatever I am thinking, objectively I am praying.”

Slavoj Žižek book The Sublime Object of Ideology

32
The Sublime Object of Ideology (1989)

Martin Luther King, Jr. photo

“Never before have I written so long a letter. I'm afraid it is much too long to take your precious time. I can assure you that it would have been much shorter if I had been writing from a comfortable desk, but what else can one do when he is alone in a narrow jail cell, other than write long letters, think long thoughts, and pray long prayers?”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1960s, (1963)

Leigh Hunt photo

“I pray thee, then,
Write me as one who loves his fellow men.”

Leigh Hunt (1784–1859) English critic, essayist, poet and writer

Abou Ben Adhem
Context: Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase!)
Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace,
And saw, within the moonlight in his room,
Making it rich, and like a lily in bloom,
An Angel writing in a book of gold: Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold,
And to the Presence in the room he said,
"What writest thou?" The Vision raised its head,
And with a look made of all sweet accord
Answered, "The names of those who love the Lord." "And is mine one?" said Abou. "Nay, not so,"
Replied the Angel. Abou spoke more low,
But cheerily still; and said, "I pray thee, then,
Write me as one who loves his fellow men." The Angel wrote, and vanished. The next night
It came again with a great wakening light,
And showed the names whom love of God had blessed,
And, lo! Ben Adhem's name led all the rest!

Rosa Luxemburg photo

“Freedom is always and exclusively freedom for the one who thinks differently.”

Rosa Luxemburg (1871–1919) Polish Marxist theorist, socialist philosopher, and revolutionary

Source: The Russian Revolution (1918), Chapter Six, "The Problem of Dictatorship"
Context: Freedom only for the supporters of the government, only for the members of one party – however numerous they may be – is no freedom at all. Freedom is always and exclusively freedom for the one who thinks differently. Not because of any fanatical concept of “justice” but because all that is instructive, wholesome and purifying in political freedom depends on this essential characteristic, and its effectiveness vanishes when “freedom” becomes a special privilege.

Related topics