“We spend most of our time and energy in a kind of horizontal thinking. We move along the surface of things going from one quick base to another, often with a frenzy that wears us out. We collect data, things, people, ideas, ‘profound experiences,’ never penetrating any of them… But there are other times. There are times when we stop. We sit still. We lose ourselves in a pile of leaves or its memory. We listen and breezes from a whole other world begin to whisper. Then we begin our ‘going down.'”
James Carroll, Sunbeams (Page 22)
Marcus Aurelius Quote on Remembering Our Natural Born Power To Choose Between Good and Evil
“Erase the false impressions from your mind by constantly saying to yourself, I have it in my soul to keep out any evil, desire or any kind of disturbance—instead, seeing the true nature of things, I will give them only their due. Always remember this power that nature gave you.”
Marcus Aurelius, The Daily Stoic (Page 34)
Beyond the Quote (Day 391)
Your current ability to utilize the power nature gave you to keep out evil, desire, and disturbance is largely dependent on your track record. Your track record contains within it all of the successes and failures you’ve accumulated throughout your lifetime. And confidence—the confidence you have in your ability to act—is a result of nothing more than your remembered successes (or lack thereof).
Read More »Marcus Aurelius Quote on Remembering Our Natural Born Power To Choose Between Good and EvilJohn Dewey Quote on Education and How The Process and The Goal Are One And The Same
“I believe finally, that education must be conceived as a continuing reconstruction of experience; that the process and the goal of education are one and the same thing.”
John Dewey, Educated
Beyond the Quote (Day 390)
Becoming educated and getting a degree are two different goals. What most of us have been taught to aspire to isn’t education—it’s accreditation. We’re taught that what’s most important isn’t what you learn along the way, but what paper you receive at the end—the one that says you’ve been “educated” by this College or that University. Which isn’t exactly unreasonable as those educational institutions are supposed to represent a certain standard of education. But, at the end of the day, after all of the “accreditations” have been handed out, what matters most isn’t the paper in and of itself—it’s the person behind the paper.
Read More »John Dewey Quote on Education and How The Process and The Goal Are One And The Same
“I had a thousand dollars in my bank account. It felt strange just to think that, let alone say it. A thousand dollars. Extra. That I did not immediately need. It took weeks for me to come to terms with this fact, but as I did, I began to experience the most powerful advantage of money: the ability to think of things besides money.”
Tara Westover, Educated (Page 207)
“The seed of curiosity had been planted; it needed nothing more than time and boredom to grow. Sometimes, when I was stripping copper from a radiator or throwing the five hundredth chunk of steel into the bin, I’d find myself imagining the classrooms where Tyler was spending his days. My interest grew more acute with every deadening hour in the junkyard, until one day I had a bizarre thought: that I should enroll in the public school.”
Tara Westover, Educated (Page 60)
“A low self-love in the parent desires that his child should repeat his character and fortune. I suffer whenever I see that common sight of a parent or senior imposing his opinion and way of thinking and being on a young soul to which he is totally unfit. Cannot we let people be themselves, and enjoy life in their own way? You are trying to make another you. One’s enough.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Sunbeams (Page 21)
“I have met on the street a very poor man who was in love. His hat was old, his coat was out at the elbows, the water passed through his shoes, and the stars through his soul.”
Victor Hugo, Sunbeams (Page 21)
“We do not remember days, we remember moments.”
Cesare Pavese, Sunbeams (Page 21)
“The more things we desire and the more we have to do to earn or attain those achievements, the less we actually enjoy our lives—and the less free we are.”
Ryan Holiday, The Daily Stoic (Page 33)
“The accident would always make me think of the Apache women, and of all the decisions that go into making a life—the choices people make, together and on their own, that combine to produce any single event. Grains of sand, incalculable, pressing into sediment, then rock.”
Tara Westover, Educated (Page 40)
“The past is beautiful because one never realises an emotion at the time. It expands later, and thus we don’t have complete emotions about the present, only about the past.”
Virginia Woolf, via Educated
“If there is any kindness I can show, or any good thing I can do to any fellow being, let me do it now, and not deter or neglect it, as I shall not pass this way again.”
William Penn, Sunbeams (Page 20)
Alan Watts Quote on The Present and How It’s Not A Result Of The Past
“Everyone automatically assumes that the present is the result of the past. Turn it around, and consider whether the past may not be a result of the present. The past may be streaming back from the now, like the country as seen from an airplane.”
Alan Watts, Sunbeams (Page 14)
Beyond the Quote (Day 388)
Seeing the past as being the cause of your present steals from you the accountability that’s needed to take ownership of your future. For, you can’t change the outcome of your future if you’re busy blaming what happened in the past. You have to realize, as Watts outlines above, that it’s the present that caused the past, not the past that caused the present.
Read More »Alan Watts Quote on The Present and How It’s Not A Result Of The PastEducated: A Memoir [Book]
Book Overview: Born to survivalists in the mountains of Idaho, Tara Westover was seventeen the first time she set foot in a classroom. Her family was so isolated from mainstream society that there was no one to ensure the children received an education, and no one to intervene when one of Tara’s older brothers became violent. When another brother got himself into college, Tara decided to try a new kind of life. Her quest for knowledge transformed her, taking her over oceans and across continents, to Harvard and to Cambridge University. Only then would she wonder if she’d traveled too far, if there was still a way home.
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Post(s) Inspired by this Book:
- 13 Poignant Tara Westover Quotes from Educated
- Tara Westover Quote on How Education Is About More Than Making A Living (Beyond the Quote Day 394)
- John Dewey Quote on Education and How The Process and The Goal Are One And The Same (Beyond the Quote Day 390)