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Ten Perspectives on Milton

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Merritt Y. Hughes

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“There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And an outstanding reason for choosing some sort of God or spiritual-type thing to worship — be it J.C. or Allah, be it Yahweh or the Wiccan mother-goddess or the Four Noble Truths or some infrangible set of ethical principles — is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things — if they are where you tap real meaning in life — then you will never have enough. Never feel you have enough. It's the truth. Worship your own body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly, and when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally plant you. On one level, we all know this stuff already — it's been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, bromides, epigrams, parables: the skeleton of every great story. The trick is keeping the truth up-front in daily consciousness. Worship power — you will feel weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to keep the fear at bay. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart — you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. And so on.”

Inspirational Attitude
Author:David Foster Wallace
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“Sometimes it is the other way around. A white person is set down in our midst, but the contrast is just as sharp for me. For instance, when I sit in the drafty basement that is The New World Cabaret with a white person, my color comes. We enter chatting about any little nothing that we have in common and are seated by the jazz waiters. In the abrupt way that jazz orchestras have, this one plunges into a number. It loses no time in circumlocutions, but gets right down to business. It constricts the thorax and splits the heart with its tempo and narcotic harmonies. This orchestra grows rambunctious, rears on its hind legs and attacks the tonal veil with primitive fury, rending it, clawing it until it breaks through to the jungle beyond. I follow those heathen--follow them exultingly. I dance wildly inside myself; I yell within, I whoop; I shake my assegai above my head, I hurl it true to the mark yeeeeooww! I am in the jungle and living in the jungle way. My face is painted red and yellow and my body is painted blue. My pulse is throbbing like a war drum. I want to slaughter something--give pain, give death to what, I do not know. But the piece ends. The men of the orchestra wipe their lips and rest their fingers. I creep back slowly to the veneer we call civilization with the last tone and find the white friend sitting motionless in his seat, smoking calmly. "Good music they have here," he remarks, drumming the table with his fingertips. Music. The great blobs of purple and red emotion have not touched him. He has only heard what I felt. He is far away and I see him but dimly across the ocean and the continent that have fallen between us. He is so pale with his whiteness then and I am so colored.”

Inspirational AttitudeBeautiful Writing
Book:How it Feels to be Colored Me
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“Chúng ta hay có xu hướng bám lấy những người siêu phàm, những người được cho rằng một tay thay đổi thế giới, mà bỏ qua câu chuyện của những kẻ người trần mắt thịt như chính bản thân chúng ta, những người lê lết đau đớn ở cuối đoàn marathon, những người như em Ruby. Chúng ta bị thu hút bởi những người xuất chúng và nổi tiếng, chúng ta dễ rơi vào tâm lý chờ đợi, phó thác. "Cái thể chế này nó thế!," Chúng ta nói, và khoanh tay chờ đợi. Chúng ta đợi một Lý Quang Diệu mới xuất hiện để bộ máy công quyền trơn tru hơn, đợi một Mẹ Theresia mới để lòng tử tế nảy nở trong cộng đồng, đợi một Martin Luther King mới để sự bình đẳng được lan truyền trong xã hội”

Inspirational Attitude
Book:Bức Xúc Không Làm Ta Vô Can
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“If there was a moral issue involved, she would, of course, defend her position to the end. But long ago her mother had taught her that often it is the little things over which people battle foolishly, losing friends, disturbing peace of mind, destroying serenity with no end in view save that they continue to defend the position they have already taken. It was far better, her mother pointed out, to give in gracefully, remembering that a fight in a lesser cause is never worth the struggle. She maintained that by doing so one gained everything really worth having, serenity, sweetness, and inner strength.”

Inspirational Attitude
Book:The Years of the Locust
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