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Quote by Alison Lurie

“Fred gets off to change at the Northern line, and so does the young woman in the green cape; he notices that she has been reading Joseph Conrad’s Chance. He quickens his pace, for he is a Conrad fan; then, uncertain of what he’s going to say to her, slows down. The young woman gives him a regretful backward glance as she turns toward the stairs to the southbound platform.”

Book:Foreign Affairs

Work

Foreign Affairs

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Author

Alison Lurie

American novelist born on September 3, 1926. Alison Lurie is known for her delicate psychological portrayals and profound insights into American social culture. more

“It was just as well he hadn’t had a chance to be alone with her, he might have fallen. A young doctor, not yet in practice, had nothing to offer an Ellen Hamilton. Moreover, he had no intention of getting involved with any girl until he had paid back the family for their backing him all these years, and was earning enough to support a wife on a decent economic level.”

Page 34

Book:The Expendable Man

Source: The Expendable Man

“With respect to Stoicism, Hadot has described four features that constitute the universal Stoic attitude. They are, first, the Stoic consciousness of "the fact that no being is alone, but that we make up part of a Whole, constituted by the totality of human beings as well as by the totality of the cosmos"; second, the Stoic "feels absolutely serene, free, and invulnerable to the extent that he has become aware that there is no other evil but moral evil and that the only thing that counts is the purity of moral consciousness"; third, the Stoic "believes in the absolute value of the human person," a belief that is "at the origin of the modern notion of the 'rights of man'"; finally, the Stoic exercises his concentration "on the present instant, which consists, on the one hand, in living as if we were seeing the world for the first and for the last time, and, on the other hand, in being conscious that, in this lived presence of the instant, we have access to the totality of time and of the world." 17 Thus, for Hadot, cosmic consciousness, the purity of moral consciousness, the recognition of the equality and absolute value of human beings, and the concentration on the present instant represent the universal Stoic attitude. The universal Epicurean attitude essentially consists, by way of "a certain discipline and reduction of desires, in returning from pleasures mixed with pain and suffering to the simple and pure pleasure of existing.”

Stoicism Page 34

Book:Philosophy as a Way of Life: Spiritual Exercises from Socrates to Foucault

Source: Philosophy as a Way of Life: Spiritual Exercises from Socrates to Foucault

“Sensei, why can’t I go to school?”... “I am truly sorry, my son. I know this is hard but you have another purpose. A greater purpose. Something far more important than playground games and making friends. I wish it wasn’t so, but it is.”

Chapter 2

Book:Rapture

Source: Rapture