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Pico Iyer

Pico Iyer Quotes

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Famous Pico Iyer Quotes

“In the end, we need two things to lead a balanced life - a sense of the world and a sense of ourselves; it's like breathing in and breathing out. And if you can only get to know the world by stepping out, and losing yourself in experience, you can only get to know the self by stepping back, and finding yourself in contemplation. One without the other leads to a kind of madness.”

IfsKnowsWorldNeedsKindTwoEndsSelfMotivationalFindingsLosingMadnessBreathingContemplationTwo ThingsFinding YourselfBalancedLosing YourselfBalanced LifeStepping Back
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“Anybody who travels knows that you're not really doing so in order to move around - you're traveling in order to be moved. And really what you're seeing is not just the Grand Canyon or the Great Wall but some moods or intimations or places inside yourself that you never ordinarily see when you're sleepwalking through your daily life.”

KnowsMovingOrderSeeingWallMovedMoodDaily LifeFinding YourselfRoutineExploringCanyonsGrand CanyonTreat YourselfSleepwalkingGreat Wall
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“I love the fact that we can't explain coincidences. I think it's like sometimes you walk into a crowded room and you'll see a stranger and you feel as if you know her better than the friends that you came with. And the very fact that you can't explain it is what gives it its power, that it lies in some deeper or mysterious realm, I think.”

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“Dalai Lama has made new opportunities for women that they never had in Tibet, introduced science into the monks' curriculum and had Tibetan students in exile take their classes in English after the age of ten so that they will know more about the outside world. But one of the great things he's done is to bring all the Tibetan groups together in exile, as perhaps they couldn't have been when they weren't in exile and they weren't under such pressure.”

KnowsWorldHas BeensMadeDoneAgeTogetherOpportunityClassGroupsStudentsTenPressureGreat ThingsExileMonkCurriculumOutside WorldTibetanLamaTibetNew OpportunityDalai
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“It's impressive that a man [Dalai Lama], on the day after his Nobel Prize was announced, in October, 1989, said to me, "I really wonder if my efforts are enough?" Most of us, if we just won the Nobel Prize, would think this is vindication, or at last there's a chance for Tibet. He's the rare person who thinks, as a Buddha would, "I don't know if I've done enough, I don't know if I will do enough."”

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“Dalai Lama is transforming those criteria - and the whole way of conducting politics. He's conducting politics in a much deeper way than most politicians are able to. He's the only politician I know of who's a monk. The Pope, of course, is in a similar position, but the Pope isn't in the same way leading a country of many million people.”

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“Literally, when you wake up at 9 o'clock in the morning in Havana you don't know where you'll be at noon. But it's a safe guess that you'll either be married, arrested, or in the midst of some incredible transaction where somebody is stealing your passport or paying you in Dominican pesos for it, or whatever. It's a wild place.”

KnowsMorningSafeMarriedWake UpIncrediblesStealingClockMidstBeing MarriedArrestedNoonTransactionsPassportsHavanaWild Places
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“Yes, we know more than ever before, and it's a wonder that we get to inhabit a world full of driverless cars and 3D printers. But that doesn't mean that we know any more about the essential things in life - love, faith, death - and it would be dangerous to assume we did. The only thing that gets us through sometimes is a proper, humbled sense that we don't have a clue, we can't be sure what's going to happen next and life will always be much larger than our ideas of it.”

KnowsWorldMeanIdeasSometimesHappensWould BeNextWonderDangerousCarEssentialsAssumingLove LifeThings In LifeCluePrinterFaith In Love
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“In terms of technology and science, tomorrow does know more than yesterday; but when it comes to emotions, living with uncertainty, terror, I'm not sure we know any more than Shakespeare did, or the Buddha. And the power of new things - the iPhone or Facebook - is so strong and intoxicating that we sometimes forget that none of them can fundamentally change our relation to ourselves and to what matters.”

KnowsDoeSometimesMatterStrongTermForgetEmotionTechnologyTomorrowRelationTerrorYesterdayUncertaintyNot SureNew ThingsWhat MattersIphone
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“Perhaps the greatest danger of our global community is that the person in LA thinks he knows Cambodia because he's seen The Killing Fields on-screen, and the newcomer from Cambodia thinks he knows LA because he's seen City of Angels on video.”

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Book:The Global Soul: Jet Lag, Shopping Malls, and the Search for Home
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“For if every true love affair can feel like a journey to a foreign country, where you can’t quite speak the language, and you don’t know where you’re going, and you’re pulled ever deeper into the inviting darkness, every trip to a foreign country can be a love affair, where you’re left puzzling over who you are and whom you’ve fallen in love with.”

IfsKnowsFeelsCountryLeftSpeakLanguageDarknessJourneyWho You AreAffairDeeperFallenLove AffairInvitingForeign CountriesVery TruePuzzling
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