Life is a phenomenon in need of criticism, for we are, as fallen creatures, in permanent danger of worshipping false gods, of failing to understand ourselves and misinterpreting the behaviour of others, of growing unproductively anxious or desirous, and of losing ourselves to vanity and error.
G. K. Chesterton on The Fallacy Of Success
They do not teach people to be successful, but they do teach people to be snobbish; they do spread a sort of evil poetry of worldliness.
José Ortega y Gasset – Barbarism of Specialization [Revolt of the Masses chapter summary]
In his 1930 book The Revolt of the Masses (Spanish: La rebelión de las masas) José Ortega y Gasset deals with the rise of mass-man and the question of how around the turn of the…
Italo Calvino: (A Possible) Categorization of Books
In the opening pages of his book If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler Italo Calvino drops a really interesting (and possible) categorization of books. I am still digesting how I would fit certain books…
The Value of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell
“That’s a philosophical question!” – have you ever received such a response when questioning underlying reasons of some practical matters? Such a question will often be dismissed as impractical, unhelpful or completely unrelated to the…
Giacomo Leopardi on Wickedness of Human Condition
What I do is in no sense done for your enjoyment or benefit, as you seem to think. Finally, if I by chance exterminated your species, I should not know it.
7 Great Books About Flaneurs and the Art of Flaneuring
Strolling is the gastronomy of the eye. To walk is to vegetate, to stroll is to live.
Elias Canetti On Owning More Books Than You Can Read
And that is, I believe, a part of defiance against death. I don’t want to know which from those books will remain unread. That will remain uncertain until the very last moment.
Henry Miller On Writing
I had to grow foul with knowledge, realize the futility of everything, smash everything, grow desperate, then humble, then sponge myself off the slate, as it were, in order to recover my authenticity. I had to arrive at the brink and then take a leap in the dark.