„The most despicable humans are the ones who always feel virtuous and look down on the rest of the world.“
Source: The Angel's Game
Carlos Ruiz Zafón149
Spanish writer 1964Related quotes
— Jean Vanier Canadian humanitarian 1928 - 2019
On Being, The Wisdom of Tenderness (transcript) http://www.onbeing.org/program/wisdom-tenderness/transcript/1369 Interview with Krista Tippett, December 24, 2009
From interviews and talks
„I see magic as a vantage point from which one can look down on the rest of consciousness.“
— Alan Moore English writer primarily known for his work in comic books 1953
De Abaitua interview (1998)
Context: The traditional definition of magic – and I think this comes from Crowley who laid down a lot of the ground rules – he defined magic as bringing about change in accordance with the will. I’m not sure about that. It’s certainly part of it, but to bring about change in the universe in accordance with your will seems to me to be misunderstanding the relationship between the individual and the universe. In my relationship with the universe, I do tend to see myself as very much the Junior Partner. I don’t want to impose my will on the universe, I’d rather the universe imposed its will on me. I would rather that what I wanted was more in tune with what the universe wanted. So my definition of magic is a bit less invasive and intrusive. … It’s more exploratory with me. I see magic as a vantage point from which one can look down on the rest of consciousness. It’s a point outside normal consciousness from which you can look at normal consciousness, it’s a point outside beliefs from which you can look at beliefs. All beliefs are reality tunnels, to use Anton Wilson’s phrase. There is the Communist reality tunnel, the Feminist reality tunnel, all of which seem to be the whole of reality when you are in the middle of them. The whole universe is based on Marxist theory if you’re an intent Marxist. Magic is having a plan of all the tunnels, and seeing the overall condition in which they all work. Being aware of different possibilities.
— Tulsidas Hindu poet-saint 1532 - 1623
Tulsidas quoted in "Hindu spirituality: Postclassical and modern", p. 77
„Rest and laughter are the most spiritual and subversive acts of all. Laugh, rest, slow down.“
— Anne Lamott Novelist, essayist, memoirist, activist 1954
Source: Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith
„It is not human nature we should accuse but the despicable conventions that pervert it.“
— Denis Diderot French Enlightenment philosopher and encyclopædist 1713 - 1784
On Dramatic Poetry (1758)
„It's always the good men who do the most harm in the world.“
— Henry Adams journalist, historian, academic, novelist 1838 - 1918
As quoted in American Heritage (December 1955), p. 44
Context: I disagree with my brother Charles and Theodore Roosevelt. I think that Lee should have been hanged. It was all the worse that he was a good man and a fine character and acted conscientiously. These facts have nothing to do with the case and should not have been allowed to interfere with just penalties. It's always the good men who do the most harm in the world.
„A real friend is one who walks in when the rest of the world walks out.“
— Walter Winchell American gossip journalist 1897 - 1972
Attributed
— Salvador Dalí Spanish artist 1904 - 1989
Quote from Tiny Surrealism: Salvador Dalí and the Aesthetics of the Small, Roger Rothman, 2012 UNP-Nebraska.
Quotes of Salvador Dali, Miscellaneous
— Friedrich Hayek Austrian and British economist and Nobel Prize for Economics laureate 1899 - 1992
1980s and later, Interview in Silver & Gold Report (1980)
— Pat Condell Stand-up comedian, writer, and Internet personality 1949
"A word to left-wing students" (11 July 11 2013) https://youtube.com/watch?v=85q6BOnwIAQ
2013
Context: They say great minds think alike. That's also true of tiny minds, and it's especially true of closed ones. I'm always impressed by students who know so much about the world they feel no need to listen to anyone else's opinions, aren't you? Especially when they feel compelled to actively shout them down. That's confidence for you.... Anyone who's unwilling to hear an opposing opinion has no business attending a university, unless they're planning to graduate with honors in bigotry. And they have no business teaching at one either. There's nothing liberal, intelligent, enlightened, civilized or progressive about shutting somebody up because you don't want other people to hear their opinions. Who are you to decide who should and shouldn't be heard? Who made you emperor? It's not only an incitement to public disorder, it's a form of assault and a violation of the civil rights of everyone around you.
— Thomas Chandler Haliburton Canadian-British politician, judge, and author 1796 - 1865
Sam Slick, in Sam Slick's wise saws and modern instances: or, What he said, did, or invented, Volumen 1 https://archive.org/details/samslickswisesaw00haliuoft (1853), p. 185, Hurst and Blackett.
„We look at the world once, in childhood.
The rest is memory.“
— Louise Glück, book Meadowlands
Source: Meadowlands (1996), "Nostos"
— Karl Barth Swiss Protestant theologian 1886 - 1968
This is paraphrased in "Karl Barth's Conception of God" (1952) http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/primarydocuments/Vol2/520102BarthsConceptionOfGod.pdf by Martin Luther King, Jr.: God is the one who stands above our highest and deepest feelings, strivings and intuitions.
Dogmatics in Outline (1949)
Context: He is the One who stands above us and also above our highest and deepest feelings, strivings, intuitions, above the products, even the most sublime, of the human spirit. God in the highest means first of all … He who is in no way established in us, in no way corresponds to a human disposition and possibility, but who is in every sense established simply in Himself and is real in that way; and who is manifest and made manifest to us men, not because of our seeking and finding, feeling and thinking, but again and again, only through Himself. It is this God in the highest who has turned as such to man, given Himself to man, made Himself knowable to him … God in the highest, in the sense of the Christian Confession, means He who from on high has condescended to us, has come to us, has become ours.<!-- p. 37