“But to be quite oneself one must first waste a little time.”
Elizabeth Bowen (1899–1973) Irish writer
“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)
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
Do you have more details about the quote "To devote oneself to vigilance when the enemy is an imaginary one is idle, and to congratulate oneself for looking long…" by Robert Silverberg?
Robert Silverberg88
American speculative fiction writer and editor 1935Related quotes
“At least when one speaks of oneself one is passionate, well-informed and specific.”
Jan Neruda (1834–1891) Czech poet, theater reviewer, publicist and writer
Marguerite Yourcenar book Memoirs of Hadrian
Le véritable lieu de naissance est celui où l'on a porté pour la première fois un coup d'oeil intelligent sur soi-même: mes premières patries ont été des livres.
Source: Memoirs of Hadrian (1951), p. 33
“Life being what it is, one dreams of revenge — and has to content oneself with dreaming.”
Paul Gauguin (1848–1903) French Post-Impressionist artist
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
Ferdinand Foch (1851–1929) French soldier and military theorist
Source: Precepts and Judgments (1919), p. 110
Miguel de Unamuno (1864–1936) 19th-20th century Spanish writer and philosopher
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.”
Richard Stallman (1953) American software freedom activist, short story writer and computer programmer, founder of the GNU project
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.
