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48309ff
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We see the world, not as it is, but as we are--or, as we are conditioned to see it.
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perceptions
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Stephen R. Covey |
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264d794
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Every culture has its southerners -- people who work as little as they can, preferring to dance, drink, sing brawl, kill their unfaithful spouses; who have livelier gestures, more lustrous eyes, more colorful garments, more fancifully decorated vehicles, a wonderful sense of rhythm, and charm, charm, charm; unambitious, no, lazy, ignorant, superstitious, uninhibited people, never on time, conspicuously poorer (how could it be otherwise, say the northerners); who for all their poverty and squalor lead enviable lives -- envied, that is, by work-driven, sensually inhibted, less corruptly governed northerners. We are superior to them, say the northerners, clearly superior. We do not shirk our duties or tell lies as a matter of course, we work hard, we are punctual, we keep reliable accounts. But they have more fun than we do ... They caution[ed] themselves as people do who know they are part of a superior culture: we mustn't let ourselves go, mustn't descend to the level of the ... jungle, street, bush, bog, hills, outback (take your pick). For if you start dancing on tables, fanning yourself, feeling sleepy when you pick up a book, developing a sense of rhythm, making love whenever you feel like it -- then you know. The south has got you.
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culture
north
north-and-south
northerners
perceptions
prejudice
regions
society
south
southerners
stereotypes
superiority
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Susan Sontag |
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511b1d1
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"There's a writer for you," he said. "Knows everything and at the same time he knows nothing." [narrator]It was my first inkling that he was a writer. And while I like writers--because if you ask a writer anything you usually get an answer--still it belittled him in my eyes. Writers aren't people exactly. Or, if they're any good, they're a whole lot of people trying so hard to be one person. It's like actors, who try so pathetically not to look in mirrors. Who lean backward trying--only to see their faces in the reflecting chandeliers."
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descriptions
insider
people
perceptions
writers
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F. Scott Fitzgerald |
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317b6d1
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We are happy when people/things conform and unhappy when they don't. People and events don't disappoint us, our models of reality do. It is my model of reality that determines my happiness or disappointments.
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happiness
life-lessons
perception
perception-of-reality
perceptions
reality
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Stefan Zweig |
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f0719dd
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And as the years flowed by, some villagers told travelers of a beast and a beauty who lived in the castle and could be seen walking on the battlements, and others told of two beauties, and others, of two beasts.
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fairy-tales-for-adults
love
perceptions
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Emma Donoghue |
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7575003
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"Unless there is a strong sense of place there is no travel writing, but it need not come from topographical description; dialogue can also convey a sense of place. Even so, I insist, the traveler invents the place. Feeling compelled to comment on my travel books, people say to me, "I went there"---China, India, the Pacific, Albania-- "and it wasn't like that." I say, "Because I am not you."
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perceptions
travel
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Paul Theroux |
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a34e8ea
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I mulled over the implications and decided not to waste my time worrying about what everyone else thought, or to bother attempting to change their perceptions. My time at the Keep was just a stopover. Let them wonder.
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judgements
outcast
perceptions
wonder
yelena-zaltana
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Maria V. Snyder |
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672c4d0
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Teenage drinking has been declining since 1999, but students vastly overestimate their classmates' use of alcohol, drugs, and cigarettes. For example, a study conducted at a Midwestern high school when teenage alcohol use was peaking found that students believed that 92% of their peers Frank alcohol and 85% smoked cigarettes. When researchers surveyed the school to unearth the actual statistics, they learned that 47% of students had consumed alcohol and 17% smoked.
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perceptions
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Alexandra Robbins |