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Tag:self-doubtClear

It is not easy to say what is the matter with civilization; but clearly one of its chief defects is that it cannot take certainty for granted, because its members spend most of their time doubting everything, including themselves.
— Simone Weil, The Need for Roots (1949)

1w ago

We are always afraid to start something that we want to make very good, true, and serious. We believe in our hearts that it will come to nothing — that it is hopeless. But it is not hopeless. It can be done.

2mo ago

themarginalian.org

Middle Age and the Art of Self-Renewal: An Extraordinary Letter from Pioneering Education Reformer Elizabeth Peabody

The perilous time for the most highly gifted is not youth. The holy sensibilities of genius — for all the sensibilities of genius are holy — keep their possessor essentially unhurt as long as animal spirits and the idea of being young last; but the perilous season is middle age, when a false wisdom tempts them to doubt the divine origin of the dreams of their youth; when the world comes to them, not with the song of the siren, against which all books warn us, but as a wise old man counselling acquiescence in what is below them.

4mo ago

Underscored — save the words that stop you in your tracks.

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