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Quote by Nicolas Berdyaev

“A little consideration will reveal the absurdity of supposing that the present generation (if one can call ‘present’ that which is in the act of disappearing) or the generations of fifty or a hundred years hence can make a more real and valuable contribution to the human consciousness than those which existed fifty, a hundred or five thousand years ago. Our habit of breaking up time into the past, present and future does not entitle us to endow the last with more reality than the first. From the standpoint of the present, the future is no richer in reality than the past, and our efforts should be with reference, not to the future, but to that eternal present of which both future and past are one. The past has no existence except in our memory; the future is not yet, nor is it certain that it will be.”

Quote by Nicolas Berdyaev

Work

The Meaning of History

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Nicolas Berdyaev

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“Only a fool writes for anything but money,’ Samuel Johnson wrote in the 18th century. If that's true, and it probably is, I've been a fool more times than I care to count. I will say that I've been a much happier fool when I'm writing what I love to write. Here's the rough-and-tumble fact of it: The overwhelming odds are that when you're writing your first book (and even your second) you will be writing it for free, you will not receive a contract or advance from a major publisher, and you will not get an agent. I say this with utmost affection and empathy. I also say, let the statistical truth of all that, free us to write what we love, what we want to write, exactly what we would write for free. And once you're dancing down that path, write hard, write the thing the best you can write it, and who knows? Maybe the phone ringing on your bedside table is that literary agent and they're calling with good news. Best of all they're calling because they love your work as much as you do. And if that call doesn't come through, not right away, where does that leave you? With no regrets. All respect to Dr. Johnson, [but] the far, far better quote (for my ‘money’) is: ‘Never for money, always for love...’ Talking Heads. They didn't just write it. They sang it.” (Ruuf Wangersen interview, July 2018, sevencircumstances.com)”

“I want my heart to be the thin place. I don't want to board a plane to feel the kiss of heaven. I want to carry it with me wherever I go. I want my fragile, hurting heart, to recognize fleeting kairos, eternal moments as they pass. I want to be my own mountain and my own retreat.”

“Le momentum : c’est le moment où coïncide qui on est vraiment et ce que l’on fait.”

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