Here in Italy I have seen the dividing point between the ages. I did so when I saw, along with the sailing vessel, a motorboat on the lake, floating, streamlined, but still a machine. I saw this dividing point also when in Padua I went through the streets with their houses that were so full of vitality. In almost all of them the second story rested on pillars and the first floor was set back. The spaces were conjoined, so that on both sides of the streets we had covered walkways. Each house was built individually and yet in such a way as to create a feeling that they all…
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Richard Bach on The Simplest Questions
The simplest questions are the most profound. Where were you born? Where is your home? Where are you going? What are you doing? Think about these once in a while, and watch your answers change.
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Pascal on Dealing with the Present
We do not rest satisfied with the present. We anticipate the future as too slow in coming, as if in order to hasten its course; or we recall the past, to stop its too rapid flight. So imprudent are we that we wander in the times which are not ours, and do not think of the only one which belongs to us; and so idle are we that we dream of those times which are no more, and thoughtlessly overlook that which alone exists. For the present is generally painful to us. We conceal it from our sight, because it troubles us; and if it be delightful to us, we…
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Illich on Learning Versus Certification
Neither learning nor justice is promoted by schooling because educators insist on packaging instruction with certification. Learning and the assignment of social roles are melted into schooling. Yet to learn means to acquire a new skill or insight, while promotion depends on an opinion which others have formed. Learning frequently is the result of instruction, but selection for a role or category in the job market increasingly depends on mere length of attendance.
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Sir Richard Livingstone on the Need for Deep Values
In the past, spiritual forces, of which Christianity is the chief, have done much to control and direct the country, but these forces, which at all times fight an uphill battle, have lost ground; and in proportion as they lose it, life loses direction and purpose, and character becomes a habit whose roots are dead, a house whose foundations are sapped. Here is our biggest need; the need of values and standards which are more than mere habits, which go down below the soil of custom into the rock of clear conviction and are founded in a philosophy of life.