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Unknowing Quotes

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Unknowing Quotes

“I’m not surprised that in a time of hideous precarity so many of us would find ourselves tempted by the false grandiosities of certainty. But we must not confuse certainty with safety — in fact, certainty is the end of the imagination and therefore the definition of unsafety. Nor should we confuse unknowing with ignorance. To unknow is to admit limits, to acknowledge that others might have answers you lack, to recognize our exquisite interdependence as people, and best of all to seek within. To dwell in unknowing is to put your phone away and be for a brief moment completely, imperfectly, human. In times like ours unknowing is excellent proof against our society’s inhumanity, against the lizard supremacy of certainty. There is wisdom in the question deferred, the question without an immediate answer. Tolerance and unity, too. And art, as well, if we can tolerate the fact that we are all forever a question without answers, a beautiful unknown, an infinite unknowing.”

ArtHumanityKnowingDangerSafetyCertaintyImperfectionUnknowingPrecariousness
Author:Junot Díaz
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“Many people are willing to learn techniques that help them live their lives. But the person who seeks to confirm their life at its roots by reaching beyond technique to the fundamentals—to true religion—is exceedingly rare. I find this state of affairs most regrettable. That is why I can’t help but urge you to refrain from evaluating your daily life on the basis of what you think you know, on the basis of collected data.”

ReligionTrue ReligionUnknowingApophatic
Book:Novice to Master: An Ongoing Lesson in the Extent of My Own Stupidity
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“Did the gods once mingle with humankind, or is Homer a visionary madman, or, what is worse, a mere poet, a maker-up of beautiful falsities, an elegant liar? I shall grapple with that perplexity, only to emerge as I went in, in a cloud of unknowing, if perhaps a little the wiser.”

IfsLittlesBeautifulPoetMereCloudsLiarsMakersHumankindWiserElegantVisionariesMadmenPerplexityFalsityUnknowing
Book:Homeric Moments: Clues to Delight in Reading the Odyssey and the Iliad
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“Ignorance of the law of irreducibility was no excuse. I could no longer excuse myself with the claim that I didn't know the law -- for knowledge of self and of the world is the law that, even though unattainable, cannot be broken, and no one can excuse himself by saying that he doesn't know it. . . . The renewed originality of the sin is this: I have to carry out my unknowing, I shall be sinning originally against life.”

KnowsWorldSelfLawSinIgnoranceBrokenClaimsExcuseOriginalitySelf KnowledgeNo ExcusesUnattainableSinningUnknowingIgnorance Of The Law
Author:Clarice Lispector
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“That's what torture does: it creates a miasma of unknowing, about as dangerous a situation in wartime as one can imagine. This hideous fate was made possible by an inexperienced president with a fundamentalist psyche and a paranoid and power-hungry vice-president who decided to embrace "the dark side" almost as soon as the second tower fell, and who is still trying to avenge Nixon. Until they are both gone from office, we are in grave danger the kind of danger that only torturers and fantasists and a security strategy based on coerced evidence can conjure up.”

TryingKindDoeMadeStillsSidesPresidentDarkSituationGoneFateImagineSecurityDangerousDangerOfficeEvidenceDecidedStrategyEmbraceVicesGravesHungryTortureTowersDark SideHideousParanoidVice PresidentFundamentalistWartimeUnknowingPower Hungry
Author:Andrew Sullivan
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“Perhaps - and this goes for the Kyoto School too - one of these insights is that nothingness and unknowing don't have to be equated with a destructive nihilism but with the experience of unity and participation - whilst resisting the tendency of objectifying metaphysics to claim that we can in some way 'know' that this experienced unity is really the truth of how things are, i.e., reveals being itself.”

KnowsWaySchoolClaimsUnityInsightTendenciesDestructiveNothingnessMetaphysicsParticipationNihilismResistingKyotoUnknowingObjectifying
Author:George Pattison
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“The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown”

KindFearEmotionMankindHorrorScaryBarriersStrongestHalloweenFear Of FailureOvercoming FearBeing AfraidPhobiaScary ThingsHappy HalloweenFear Of The UnknownUnknowingFunny HalloweenScary HalloweenInspirational HalloweenFunny Happy HalloweenHalloween GreetingPower And FearCreating Fear
Book:Complete Collection Of H. P. Lovecraft - 150 eBooks With 100+ Audiobooks (Complete Collection Of Lovecraft's Fiction, Juvenilia, Poems, Essays And Collaborations)
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“I had gone to no such place but to the smoke of cafes and nights when the room whirled and you needed to look at the wall to make it stop, nights in bed, drunk, when you knew that that was all there was, and the strange excitement of waking and not knowing who it was with you, and the world all unreal in the dark and so exciting that you must resume again unknowing and not caring in the night, sure that this was all and all and all and not caring.”

WorldLooksNightDarkRoomsGoneKnowingStrangeWallNeededBedExcitingCaringDrunkSmokeExcitementWakingNot KnowingUnrealResumesNot CaringCafesUnknowingFarewell To Arms
Book:A Farewell to Arms
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“Only those who truly love and who are truly strong can sustain their lives as a dream. You dwell in your own enchantment. Life throws stones at you, but your love and your dream change those stones into the flowers of discovery. Even if you lose, or are defeated by things, your triumph will always be exemplary. And if no one knows it, then there are places that do. People like you enrich the dreams of the worlds, and it is dreams that create history. People like you are unknowing transformers of things, protected by your own fairy-tale, by love.”

PeopleIfsKnowsWorldDreamStrongLosesFlowerLike YouDiscoveryStonesTalesTriumphYour DreamsFairyFairy TaleProtectedDefeatedEnchantmentExemplaryUnknowing
Author:Ben Okri
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“To be left alone on the tightrope of youthful unknowing is to experience the excruciating beauty of full freedom and the threat of eternal indecision. Few, if any, survive their teens. Most surrender to the vague but murderous pressure of adult conformity. It becomes easier to die and avoid conflict than to maintain a constant battle with the superior forces of maturity.”

IfsInspirationalDiesLeftForceEasierBattleConflictEternalAdultsPressureConstantThreatSurrenderSuperiorsMaturityConformityTeensVagueLeft AloneIndecisionUnknowing
Book:I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
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“For him it was a dark passage which led to nowhere, then to nowhere, then again to nowhere, once again to nowhere, always and forever to nowhere, heavy on the elbows in the earth to nowhere, dark, never any end to nowhere, hung on all time always to unknowing nowhere, this time and again for always to nowhere, now not to be borne once again always and to nowhere, now beyond all bearing up, up, up and into nowhere, suddenly, scaldingly, holdingly all nowhere gone and time absolutely still and they were both there, time having stopped and he felt the earth move out and away from under them.”

StillsEndsEarthMovingFeltDarkGoneForeverHeavyAll TimePassagesHungElbowsAlways And ForeverUnknowingNowhere To Turn
Book:For Whom the Bell Tolls
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“The job facing American voters… in the days and years to come is to determine which hearts, minds and souls command those qualities best suited to unify a country rather than further divide it, to heal the wounds of a nation as opposed to aggravate its injuries, and to secure for the next generation a legacy of choices based on informed awareness rather than one of reactions based on unknowing fear.”

YearsMindHeartSoulCountryJobsChoicesNextNationsFreedomQualityGenerationsAwarenessDetermineWoundsHealReactionsCommandSecureLegacyInjuryVotingVotersDividesNext GenerationPresidential ElectionUnknowingAmerican VotersHeart Mind And Soul
Author:Aberjhani
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“And Harry, with the unerring skill of the Seeker, caught the wand in his free hand as Voldemort fell backward, arms splayed, the slit pupils of the scarlet eyes rolling upward. Tom Riddle hit the floor with a mundane finality, his body feeble and shrunken, the white hands empty, the snakelike face vacant and unknowing. Voldemort was dead, killed by his own rebounding curse, and Harry stood with two wands in his hands, staring down at his enemy's shell.”

TwoBodyHandsEyeFacesWhiteEnemyArmsSkillsEmptyCaughtStaringCurseTomsShellsRollingSeekersMundanePupilsRiddleScarletWandsVacantFinalitySlitsUnknowing
Author:J. K. Rowling
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“Violet said nothing, though big pearly tears, like a child's, trembled at her lashes. She suddenly missed John very much. Into him she could pour all the inarticulate perceptions, all the knowings and unknowings she felt, which, though he couldn't understand them really, he would receive reverently, and out of him would come then the advice, the warnings, the clever decisions she could never have made.”

ChildrenMadeSaidBigsFeltDecisionKnowingAdviceTearsPerceptionCleverWarningVioletLashesInarticulateUnknowing
Author:John Crowley
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“The life I walk binds my hands it makes me take things that I don’t understand I walk this dark world unknowing of what they hold true, forgetting the me I once knew, until you. The life I walk eternally was all I knew nothing more held me here to this earth until you. I feel the pain of every heart I take I feel the desire to replace all that I have grown to hate Darkness holds me close but the light still draws my empty soul The emptiness where I used pain to fill the hole no longer controls me, no longer calls me because of you.”

WorldFeelsHeartStillsSoulHandsLightEarthPainUsedDesireHateDarkWalksForgetDarknessDrawsEmptyHolesEmptinessCall MeHold MeBecause Of YouUnknowingDark WorldEmpty Souls
Author:Abbi Glines
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