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“Too much ease coats the soul with soot… Being at home somewhere is the beginning of the end.”
“The person who knows how to be properly alone is never completely alone.”
“Style… is not just a way of expressing oneself; it’s also a way of knowing oneself.”
“We have a lot to learn from the Romani people, not least in regard to resolving conflicts and disputes: they are the only nation in Europe and Western Asia that has never declared war on another nation and that has never tried to subjugate others into adopting its ways.”
“Emerson… thought consistency of opinion was a sign of small-mindedness. A man should never be afraid today to say something he believes in simply because he may contradict it tomorrow. ‘A foolish consistency,’ he wrote, ‘is the hobgoblin of little minds adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul simply has nothing to do.’”
“In such conversations [with visitors who arrive seeking guidance], the hermit should “disappear”, allowing the visitor to commune with the Sacred. The hermit unselfishly becomes a compassionate listener who, so far as the guest knows, has no personal problems or cares and so is free to empathise with others’ woes.”
“What a rapist takes from a woman is her future. The person she is going to become, who she is supposed to be, is gone. In many ways, it’s worse than murder, because he has killed that potential person, eradicated that potential life, yet she still lives and breathes, and has to figure out another way to thrive.”
“Despair... underpins so much of what looks like hedonism”
“To have any kind of a future you’ve got to give up hope of ever changing your past.”
“Academic humility: the knowledge that anyone can teach us something”
“Life without hope is hopelessly difficult but at the end hope can so easily make fools of us all.”
“I can now perceive the aggressive character of a conversation. Claiming to be interested in you, an interlocutor shatters the halo of silence, invades the shore of time, and calls upon you to answer his questions. All dialogue is a battle.”
“We need to safeguard our inner weirdo, seal it off and protect it from being buffeted.”
“[Amongst the Roma] Invisibility is regarded… as an important key to survival.”
“The first problem of solitude is that it forces us to accept our own absurdity”
“Contemporary health practitioners largely ignore the benefits of solitude for the distressed: we rush toward group therapy, talk therapy, and any means at all to keep the mentally ill occupied… not everyone needs more socialization. Indeed, many of us are desperately in need of isolation.”
“Beauty begins the moment you decide to be yourself.”
“Each expression is a political expression; we’re either insisting on being ourselves or acquiescing to a larger system.”
“The lover has understood that in truth the greatest, the only benefaction one man can accomplish for another, is to help him stand alone, to become himself, to become his own; but he has also understood the danger and the suffering in the midst of the task and above all the terribleness of responsibility.”
“[Paintings depicting Romani people] are usually classified by critics as ‘landscape’ paintings, suggesting that the artists regarded the presence of Romani families on the roads and in the woods as an element of outdoor scenery as much as a cultural practice.”
“A boat should stay in the water but water should not stay in the boat. So an aspirant may live in the world but the world should not live in him.”
“‘Most things can be cured,’ she said, ‘even such injuries as yours. It will take courage and cause pain, more than you can imagine, and who can tell if the healing is worth the cure for all the changes it will bring?’”
“In the Celtic tradition, hermits are among those who live at a “thin place”, a point where the veil between this world and the spirit world is particularly fine-spun.”
“Gradually as I became more and more aware of my solidarity with all of humanity, let alone of all creation, I went to church less frequently and knew that I was one with the local people as I prayed alone.”
“To one who knows nothing, mountains are mountains, waters are waters and trees are trees. But when he has studied and knows a little, mountains are no longer mountains, water is no longer water, and trees are no longer trees. But when he has thoroughly understood, mountains are once again mountains, waters are waters and trees are trees.”
“If the book is yours and it does not have antiquarian value, do not hesitate to annotate it. Do not trust those who say that you must respect books. You respect books by using them, not leaving them alone.”
“It is much easier to feel compassion for other people if you are not responsible for what happens to them.”
“Odd numbers please the gods.”
“Math says you can’t predict the future. It turns out that you can’t predict the past either. Time moves in both directions - forward and backward - and what happens here and now changes them both.”
“Anxious and angry relatives are a burden all doctors must bear, but having been one myself was an important part of my medical education. Doctors, I tell my trainees with a laugh, can’t suffer enough.”
“I used to think that the line dividing sane people from insane people was entirely black or white - sane or not-sane - with no grey area. But suddenly I see now that the grey area is enormous. It spreads far and wide into every part of life. Mad people aren’t just those poor souls confined to locked wards. Mad people are in positions of power and influence and sometimes get their own TV show on UK Living, shaming fat people into being less fat.”