Memorable quotes for 2021 - words of beauty & wisdom

 The beauty of flying is that altitude reduces all things to relative proportions and to the truth. Cares, remorse,  and disgust become strangers. How easily indifference, contempt and forgetfulness drop away.  - Julian Barnes (The Sense of an Ending) 

Why is there suffering in the world? Countries and Geo political blocks act as an individual organism not one part of a homeostatic organism.  - Antonio Damasio (Strange Order of Things)

All living things contain a measure of madness that moves them in strange sometimes in explicable ways.  Jann Martel (The Life of Pi)

The first principle of monotheist religions who believe God exists is, what does he want from me?
The first principle of Buddhism is,  suffering exists how do I escape it?  - Yuval Harari  (Sapiens)

There are no grounds for going beyond a scientific explanation of reality and no sound reason for believing anything but our sense experience. - Yuval Harari (Sapiens)

Jumping to conclusions is a safer sport in the world of imagination than it is in reality.  Intuition draws primarily on skill and expertise acquired by repeated experience. It is nothing more or less than recognition. We seek causal connection (intuitive prediction) rather than statistics.  Daniel Khaneman -(Thinking Fast and Thinking Slow)

 

Language implies that we know the world more and understand the past, thus predict our future. These illusions are comforting, saving us from acknowledging the uncertainties of existence. - D. Khaneman - Thinking fast and thinking slow 

The halo effect is a bias that shapes our view of people and situations. If you like the president's smile, you'll like a lot of other things about him. - D. Khaneman 

Dilute your soul while the moonlight sidles alongside you and your aesthetic path. The moon creating the illusion of a silver pathway on the water like a parting in shiny glossy hair.  - Salamon Rushie (Satanic Verses)

The sunrise,  unwrapping a misty city like a gift, as the first light of dawn touched the house,  and butterflies began instantly to glow in the perfumed garden.  - Salamon Rushdie 

Habituation anesthetizes everyday and dulls our sights. Names, once common in use quickly become mere sounds, their etymology buried like so many life marvels beneath the habit of dust. -  S. Rushdie 

Using someone's name during a conversation was like a casual caress, like stroking their hair. - Harry Mullisch (Discovery of Heaven)