“You already know enough. So do I. It is not knowledge we lack. What is missing is the courage to understand what we know and to draw conclusions.”
– Sven Lindqvist, Exterminate All Brutes
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“Most of the people I meet have enough knowledge to fill nine lives. There has never been a book written that can tell you more than what you yourself have experienced.”
– Erling Kagge, Silence
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I know that I am guilty of indefinite research.
I read compulsively.
I probably use the stories of others to avoid the work of creating my own.
The quotes prompt my own reflections. Do I hide behind them?
Books can never tell me more about myself.
They can offer examples, models, tools to help my own self discovery.
But the real work begins when the book is put down, device switched off and hard truths are faced and tackled.
I’d love to have solid convictions and certainties about the world and my role in it.
But I struggle to a unified self.
Perhaps the books aren’t mere distractions but a necessary catalyst to help stegthen my sense of who I am.
Conversations With Quotations 