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"As with any other specialisation, teaching is a vocation, open only to those who are truly capable of discharging its functions."
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"Wise man can make people hearmore lessons than words spoken."

"My mother wasn't a fool," I say. "She just understood something you didn't. That it's not sacrifice if it's someone else's life you're giving away, it's just evil."I back up another step and say, "She taught me all about real sacrifice. That it should be done from love, not misplaced disgust for another person's genetics. That it should be done from necessity, not without exhausting all other options. That it should be done for people who need your strength because they don't have enough of their own. ..."

"More than anybody else I'd like to thank Count Basie for teaching me how to perform."

"The principles of spiritual kingdom has been packaged in the written word of God."

"Bhikkhus, the teaching is merely a vehicle to describe the truth. Don't mistake it for the truth itself. A finger pointing at the moon is notthe moon. The finger is needed to know where to look for the moon, but if you mistake the finger for the moon itself, you will never knowthe real moon.The teaching is like a raft that carries you to the other shore. The raft is needed, but the raft is not the other shore. An intelligent personwould not carry the raft around on his head after making it across to the other shore. Bhikkhus, my teaching is the raft which can help youcross to the other shore beyond birth and death. Use the raft to cross to the other shore, but don't hang onto it as your property. Do notbecome caught in the teaching. You must be able to let it go."

"The way I saw it, if my students were willing to pretend I was a teacher, the least I could do was return the favor and pretend that they were writers."
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"Humility cannot be taught by propaganda, though slavery can. Shouting for humility is a form of arrogance. One of my most abiding recollections is of a priest at a religious occasion once roaring, in the most threatening way imaginable: 'O our Lord God, we most humbly pray!'Real humility is not always the same as apparent humility. Remember that fighting against self-conceit is still fighting: and that it will tend to suppress it temporarily. It does not cure anything.Remember, too, that humility itself does not bring an automatic reward: it is a means to an end. It enables a person to operate in a certain manner."


"Words, they say, are the food of minds. But, like other foods, they can do little by themselves."
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