personal mastery and self-responsibility


“A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”
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“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.”
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“The preachers and lecturers deal with men of straw, as they are men of straw themselves. Why, a free-spoken man, of sound lungs, cannot draw a long breath without causing your rotten institutions to come toppling down by the vacuum he makes. Your church is a baby-house made of blocks, and so of the state.
...The church, the state, the school, the magazine, think they are liberal and free! It is the freedom of a prison-yard.”
― I to Myself: An Annotated Selection from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau
...The church, the state, the school, the magazine, think they are liberal and free! It is the freedom of a prison-yard.”
― I to Myself: An Annotated Selection from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau

“I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.”
― Walden: Or, Life in the Woods
― Walden: Or, Life in the Woods
“A ship is safe in harbor, but that's not what ships are for.”
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Kevin’s 2024 Year in Books
Take a look at Kevin’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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