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26246c4
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It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.
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|
essay
inspirational
lecture
nonfiction
philosophy
self-reliance
social-commentary
transcendentalism
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Ralph Waldo Emerson |
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be8d387
|
No matter how corrupt, greedy, and heartless our government, our corporations, our media, and our religious & charitable institutions may become, the music will still be wonderful.
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music
nonfiction
politics
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kurt vonnegut |
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a799905
|
Don't worry about having the right words; worry more about having the right heart. It's not eloquence he seeks, just honesty.
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max-lucado
nonfiction
|
Max Lucado |
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8499ccf
|
Focus on giants - you stumble. Focus on God - Giants tumble.
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max-lucado
nonfiction
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Max Lucado |
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d3110e2
|
I've been in auditions without screens, and I can assure you that I was prejudiced. I began to listen with my eyes, and there is no way that your eyes don't affect your judgement. The only true way to listen is with your ears and your heart. (p.251)
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|
blink
ears
eyes
heart
hypocrisy
judgement
justice
music
nonfiction
prejudice
science
screens
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Malcolm Gladwell |
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9717fac
|
Je suis plutot King Kong que Kate Moss, comme fille. Je suis ce genre de femme qu'on n'epouse pas, avec qui on ne fait pas d'enfant, je parle de ma place de femme toujours trop tout ce qu'elle est, trop agressive, trop bruyante, trop grosse, trop brutale, trop hirsute, toujours trop virile, me dit-on.
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|
féminisme
littérature-française
nonfiction
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Virginie Despentes |
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5887a28
|
"Some people look like they sound better than they actually sound, because they look confident and have good posture," once musician, a veteran of many auditions, says. "Other people look awful when they play but sound great. Other people have that belabored look when they play, but you can't hear it in the sound. There is always this dissonance between what you see and hear" (p.251)."
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|
first-impressions
harmony
instrument
melody
music
nonfiction
science
sound
|
Malcolm Gladwell |
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ec5640b
|
"Bad improvisers block action, often with a high degree of skill. Good improvisers develop action."(p.115)"
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|
humor
improvisation
inspirational
motivational
nonfiction
science
|
Malcolm Gladwell |
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44bb0f9
|
I took out my grenade and put my fingers inside the pin. 'Do you boys want this to be your last meal, or do you want to answer his question?
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no-fear
nonfiction
threat
|
Ishmael Beah |
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8523823
|
No one cared what St. Louis thought, although the city got a wink for pluck.
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|
nonfiction
st-louis
|
Erik Larson |
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49a195f
|
I've allowed some of these points to stand, because this is a book of memory, and memory has its own story to tell. But I have done my best to make it tell a truthful story.
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nonfiction
story
writing
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Tobias Wolff |
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42a423c
|
Our response to the factory farm is ultimately a test of how we respond to the powerless, to the most distant, to the voiceless - it is a test of how we act when no one is forcing us to act one way or another. Consistency is not required, but engagement with the problem is.
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|
factory-farming
nonfiction
vegetarian
|
Jonathan Safran Foer |
|
9071175
|
The genres, it is thought, have other designs on us. They want to entertain, as opposed to rubbing our noses in the daily grit produced by the daily grind. Unhappily for realistic novelists, the larger reading public likes being entertained.
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|
genre-snobbery
nonfiction
popularity
reading
|
Margaret Atwood |
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a936152
|
Anything that doesn't fit this mode has been shoved into an area of lesser solemnity called 'genre fiction,' and it is here that the spy thriller and the crime story and the adventure story and the supernatural tale and the science fiction, however excellently written, must reside, sent to their rooms, as it were, for the misdemeanor of being enjoyable in what is considered a meretricious way. They invent, and we all know they invent, at least up to a point, and they are, therefore, not about 'real life,' which ought to lack coincidences and weirdness and action-adventure, unless the adventure story is about war, of course, where anything goes, and they are, therefore, not solid.
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|
literary-snobbery
nonfiction
|
Margaret Atwood |
|
78e4da4
|
We perhaps know more than we care to admit, keeping it down in the dark places of our memory-disavowed. When we eat factory-farmed meat we live, literally, on tortured flesh. Increasingly, that tortured flesh is becoming our own.
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|
factory-farming
nonfiction
phylosophy
vegetarianism
|
Jonathan Safran Foer |
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42c66f1
|
The persistence of the story of animal consent into the contemporary era tells of a human appreciation of the stakes, and a desire to do the right thing.
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|
ethics
nonfiction
vegetarianism
|
Jonathan Safran Foer |
|
5549501
|
Before child labor laws, there were businesses that treated their ten-year-old employees well. society didn't ban child labor because it's impossible to imagine children working in a good environment, but because when you give that much power to businesses over powerless individuals, it's corrupting. When we walk around thinking we have a greater right to eat an animal than the animal has a right to live without suffering, it's corrupting.
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|
child-labor
ethics
nonfiction
vegetarianism
|
Jonathan Safran Foer |
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fe32bdf
|
"The choice-obsessed modern West is probably more accommodating to individuals who choose to eat differently than any other culture has ever been, but ironically, the utterly unselective omnivore - "I'm easy; I'll eat anything" - can appear more socially sensitive than the individual who tries to eat in a way that is good for society. Food choices are determined by many factors, but reason (even consciousness) is not generally high on the list."
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|
ethics
nonfiction
vegetarianism
|
Jonathan Safran Foer |
|
1ecd48f
|
A simple trick from the backyard astronomer: if you are having trouble seeing something, look slightly away from it. The most light-sensitive parts of our eyes (those we need to see dim objects) are on the edges of the region we normally use for focusing. Eating animals has an invisible quality. Thinking about dogs, and their relationship to the animals we eat, is one way of looking askance and making something invisible visible.
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|
ethics
nonfiction
vegetarianism
|
Jonathan Safran Foer |
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e5576ed
|
"- Why should we be feminists? Why not egalitarians? - "Because that would be dishonest. Feminism is, of course, part of human rights in general- but to choose to use the vague expression human rights (or egalitarians) is to deny the specific and particular problem of gender.
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|
nonfiction
|
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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508c997
|
When the neglect is severe, the patient may behave almost as if one half of the universe had abruptly ceased to exist in any meaningful form.... Patients with unilateral neglect behave not only as if nothing were actually happening in the left hemispace, but also as if nothing of any importance could be expected to occur there.
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|
nonfiction
science
|
Oliver Sacks |
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18ba3be
|
So when the ruling ideology enjoins us to enjoy sex, not to feel guilty about it, since we are not bound by any prohibitions whose violations should make us feel guilty, the price we pay for this absence of guilt is anxiety.
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|
nonfiction
philosophy
philosophy-of-life
psychology
theology
|
Slavoj Žižek |
|
47f57c6
|
More often than not, though, no further mention was made about the fate of the prisoners. I wondered to myself what happened to these people? After months of digging, I learned the ugly truth, which is also addressed in this book.
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nonfiction
southwestern-american-culture
|
Noel Marie Fletcher |
|
0bb0354
|
Part of me thinks that your very vulnerability brings you closer to the meaning of life, just as for others, the quest to believe oneself white divides them from it.
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|
nonfiction
race-and-racism-in-america
|
Ta-Nehisi Coates |
|
f0e9d04
|
Daniel C. Dennett, un filosofo della Tufts University che ne sa sia di neuroscienze che di informatica, sostiene che la coscienza stessa ha un aspetto essenzialmente narrativo, radicato nell'evoluzione biologica del cervello. Non ho la competenza per riassumere le argomentazioni di Dennett, ma vengo persuaso d'acchito dalle sue conclusioni - perlomeno se considerate come una narrazione esplicativa. Egli concepisce la coscienza essenzialmente come <>; concepisce il se come un come se, un <> - in breve, una fantastica e incessante narrazione. <>, afferma il professor Dennett - storie che rivediamo e rettifichiamo in continuazione e che in continuazione rivedono e rettificano noi stessi. A questo punto vi chiedo: il meditare su domande del genere ha mai reso chicchessia uno scrittore migliore? Non sarebbe piu saggio se un narratore meditasse sulla casistica dell'amore, sui particolari di un tramonto, o magari sulle vicissitudini della nave spaziale U.S.S. Enterprise? Forse si, forse no. Ma nel porci domande del genere, come nel creare di continuo situazioni ipotetiche, facciamo quello che ci viene naturale - che forse viene piu naturale ad alcune persone che ad altre.
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|
nonfiction
writing
|
John Barth |