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You're Awesome: Living a Fulfilled Life

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Di Smith

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“You’re right. One has to be mad. [...] Do you remember about the prehistoric reptile, the an- cestor of man, the first to emerge from the mud in early Paleozoic times, a milliard years ago, who set out to live in the air and to breathe, even though he had no lungs? [...] Well, he was mad too. Absolutely bats. That’s why he tried. He’s the ancestor of us all, and we shouldn’t forget it. But for him we wouldn’t be here. He was as crazy as they come. We too have got to try. That's what progress is. By trying like him, perhaps we’ll wind up with the necessary organs, the organ of dignity, of decency, or of fraternity.”

HumanityDignityTruth Of LifeDecencyFraternityEvolution Of ManBecoming HumanEvolution Of Humans
Book:The Roots of Heaven
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“For my own part, without breach of truth or modesty, I may affirm, that my life has been, on the whole, the life of a philosopher: from my birth I was made an intellectual creature: and intellectual in the highest sense my pursuits and pleasures have been, even from my school-boy days. If opium-eating be a sensual pleasure, and if I am bound to confess that I have indulged in it to an excess, not yet recorded of any other man, it is no less true, that I have struggled against this fascinating enthralment with a religious zeal, and have, at length, accomplished what I never yet heard attributed to any other man - have untwisted, almost to its final links, the accursed chain which fettered me. Such a self-conquest may reasonably be set off in counterbalance to any kind of degree of self-indulgence.”

DignityOpiumThomas De QuinceyDrug HabitsSelf Controll
Author:Thomas de Quincey
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“Islam calls that ’the roots of heaven.’ and to the Mexican Indians it is the 'tree of life' — the thing that makes both of them fall on their knees and raise their eyes and beat their tormented breasts. A need for protection and company, from which obstinate people like Morel try to escape by means of petitions, fighting committees, by trying to take the protection of species in their own hands. Our needs for justice, for freedom and dignity— are roots of heaven that are deeply embedded in our hearts, but of heaven itself men know nothing but the gripping roots ...”

JusticeFreedomDignityIslamTree Of Life
Book:The Roots of Heaven
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