“But to be quite oneself one must first waste a little time.”
“To devote oneself to vigilance when the enemy is an imaginary one is idle, and to congratulate oneself for looking long and well for a foe that is not coming is foolish and sinful. My life has been a waste.”
Section 5
Short fiction, Nightwings (1968)
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Robert Silverberg 88
American speculative fiction writer and editor 1935Related quotes

“At least when one speaks of oneself one is passionate, well-informed and specific.”

“Life being what it is, one dreams of revenge — and has to content oneself with dreaming.”
Quote in Avant et Après, (1903); taken from Paul Gauguin's Intimate Journals, trans. (1923) Van Wyck Brooks [Dover, 1997, ISBN 0-486-29441-2], p. 2
1890s - 1910s

Source: Precepts and Judgments (1919), p. 110

The Tragic Sense of Life (1913), IV : The Essence of Catholicism
Context: The real sin — perhaps it is a sin against the Holy Ghost for which there is no remission — is the sin of heresy, the sin of thinking for oneself. The saying has been heard before now, here in Spain, that to be a liberal — that is, a heretic — is worse than being an assassin, a thief, or an adulterer. The gravest sin is not to obey the Church, whose infallibility protects us from reason.

“When the goal is to help others as well as oneself, we call that idealism.”
1990s, Copyleft: Pragmatic Idealism (1998)
Context: Every decision a person makes stems from the person's values and goals. People can have many different goals and values; fame, profit, love, survival, fun, and freedom, are just some of the goals that a good person might have. When the goal is to help others as well as oneself, we call that idealism.
My work on free software is motivated by an idealistic goal: spreading freedom and cooperation. I want to encourage free software to spread, replacing proprietary software that forbids cooperation, and thus make our society better.