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Quote by Harry G. Frankfurt

“Our natures are, indeed, elusively insubstantial—notoriously less stable and less inherent than the nature of other things. And insofar as this is the case, sincerity itself is bullshit.”

Quote by Harry G. Frankfurt

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On Bullshit

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Harry G. Frankfurt

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“Here is the problem: You can only desire something you don’t have—that’s how desire works. And we had each other. Resolutely. Neither of us with a stray glance at another. After Adam and I were married, when I’d go out into the world, I’d see that the men I found myself drawn to were almost replicas of Adam, just like that guy in Lisbon. I wanted nothing different. I just missed the longing. We are not supposed to want the longing, but there it is. So what do you do with that?”

“From the outset the Buddhist tradition has been divided between the most uncompromising moral rigorism and a subversion of all ideals in the name of a higher truth, transcending good and evil. Māhāyana Buddhism, in particular, argued that the ultimate truth can be discovered only by those who awaken to the reality of desire and are able to transmute it.”

“Yes, I thought, this is what I wanted, this is what I had truly imagined; to be desirable, to be beautiful and seductive, and at the same time to be completely powerful, in control, able to give glimpses of myself to strangers that would haunt them for a long time afterwards, when I wanted, when I chose, and to conceal myself or cut those glimpses short equally as I chose.”