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Susan C. Young

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“You will, at times, be the most selfish asshole you can possibly imagine. You will step out of your own integrity. You will do things you thought you would never do. The temptation is there to let your actions define your being. To carry the weight of your own failure and to live in a state of perpetual penance. Do not. Learn the art of self-forgiveness. Know that there is a difference between acting like an asshole and BEING an asshole – and it has to do with the amount of time you spend in the space and what you do once you realize you’ve gone there. Make good choices here.”

“It takes gumption to wake up every day to face the fickle world and cleave to your morals and values Not flinch at the slightest inflection of disrespect or disdain from wild ones to not give in and mimic the mockery of blending in void of integrity Standing resplendent among the dull and dirty ones who are no longer enthralled with the light of living Who’ve renounced their identity for worldy pleasures It takes audacity to live individually, intellectually, compassionately in your own way Do it anyway!”

“Especially to be avoided is approaching Kant's life in a spirit of hero worship or hagiography -- as though our interest in a philosopher's thoughts is, or ought to be, proportional to our admiration for the thinker as a human being. If there have been any true saints or heroes among important figures in the history of philosophy, we would do well to entirely ignore their heroism and saintliness in studying their philosophical thoughts. It is unhealthy and completely unphilosophical to venerate philosophers of the past as gurus at whose feet we should sit in order to absorb their wisdom. Such an attitude toward any other person, whether living or dead, betrays a contemptible slavishness of mind that is incompatible with doing philosophy at all. In holding this opinion, I am, incidentally, also being a good Kantian, since Kant regarded the practice of those who set others up as models for imitation as morally corrupt, tending sooner to produce either self-contempt or envy than virtue. But that is all the more reason to apply Kant's view on this matter to Kant himself. Even the view itself should be given no credit at all just because Kant held it, but should be held only because experience shows it to be true -- and true even about Kant himself.”

“Power creates temptations, and that is true even for the smallest increments of power: the power of the building inspector, of the customs official, of the cop at the traffic stop. It took a lot of work by a lot of people over a long time to build even America's highly imperfect standards of public integrity. Undoing that work would be a far easier task. Corruption is the resting state of pubic affairs; integrity a painstaking, unceasing struggle against cultural inertia and political gravity.”