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Freya Stark

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Famous Freya Stark Quotes

“What a strange revelation of self-esteem it is when people only love those who think and feel as they do - an extension of themselves, in fact! Even Christianity does not cure us, since one cannot feel right without assuming that the rest must be wrong. Personally I would rather feel wrong with everybody else than right all by myself: I like people different, and agree with the man who said that the worst of the human race is the number of duplicates.”

AcceptanceTravelDifferenceDuplicate
Book:Baghdad Sketches
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“Every victory of man over man has in itself a taste of defeat.... There is no essential difference between the various human groups, creatures whose bones and brains and members are the same; and every damage we do there is a form of mutilation, as if the fingers of the left hand were to be cut off by the right.”

IfsMenHumansHandsFormWinningLeftDifferencesBrainCuttingGroupsVictoryTasteCreaturesMembersEssentialsFingersDefeatVariousBonesDamageLeft HandMutilation
Book:the zodiac arch
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“The monstrosity of bureaucracy, I thought: always the pint-pot judging the gallon, the scribe's, the door-keeper's world. Always the stupidity of people who feel certain about things they never try to find out. A world that educates people to be ignorant - that is what this world of ours is.”

PeopleWorldFeelsTryingCertainDoorsThis WorldJudgingStupidityIgnorantPotEducateBureaucracyKeepersPintsGallonsMonstrosityScribesPeople Stupidity
Book:The Journey's Echo: Selections
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“The camel is an ugly animal, seen from above. Its shoulders slope formless like a sack, its silly little ears and fluff of bleached curls behind them have a respectable, boarding-house look, like some faded neatness that dresses for propriety but never dressed for love.”

LooksLittlesHouseAnimalBehindsEarsDressesUglySillyShouldersRespectableFadedCurlsProprietySlopesCamelsFluffNeatnessSilly LittleBoarding House
Book:A Winter in Arabia: A Journey Through Yemen
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“The camel carries on his dreary circular task with his usual slow and pompous step and head poised superciliously, as if it were a ritual affair above the comprehension of the vulgar; and no doubt he comforts himself for the dullness of life by a sense of virtue, like many other formalists beside him.”

IfsStepsVirtueDoubtComfortTasksAffairNo DoubtCarrieRitualUsualVulgarComprehensionDrearyCamelsPompousDullness
Book:The Journey's Echo: Selections
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“Like a human being, the mountain is a composite creature, only to be known after many a view from many a different point, and repaying this loving study, if it is anything of a mountain at all, by a gradual revelation of personality, an increase of significance.”

IfsHumansDifferentHuman BeingsViewsKnownStudyPersonalityMountainCreaturesIncreaseRevelationsSignificanceCompositesRepaying
Book:The Journey's Echo: Selections
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“I can't get over the exciting beauty of New York - the pencil buildings so high and far that the blueness of the sky floats about them; the feeling that one's taxis, and shopping, all go on in the deep canyon-beds of natural erosions rather than in the excrescences of human builders.”

HumansI CanFeelingsNaturalSkyNew YorkBuildingGoes OnBedExcitingShoppingGet OverPencilsFloatsTaxiBuilderCanyonsErosion
Book:Letters: New worlds for old, 1943-46
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