I place a high moral value on the way people behave. I find it repellent to have a lot, and to behave with anything other than courtesy in the old sense of the word - politeness of the heart, a gentleness of the spirit.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the importance of moral behavior and genuine kindness in interpersonal interactions.
Fran Lebowitz underscores the significance of courtesy as a reflection of one's moral values. She suggests that true politeness goes beyond mere social niceties; it is a deep-seated gentleness and consideration for others that should guide one's behavior, especially for those with privilege or abundance.
In practice
In a speech about leadership qualities, one might invoke this quote to discuss the role of moral integrity in effective leadership.
Your responsibility as a parent is not as great as you might imagine. You need not supply the world with the next conqueror of disease or major motion picture star. If your child simply grows up to be someone who does not use the word "collectible" as a noun, you can consider yourself an unqualified success.
You should make it hard on yourself to write so you’re easier to read.
Special-interest publications should realize that if they are attracting enough advertising and readers to make a profit, the interest is not so special.
I must take issue with the term 'a mere child,' for it has been my invariable experience that the company of a mere child is infinitely preferable to that of a mere adult.
Original thought is like original sin: both happened before you were born to people you could not have possibly met.
I never took hallucinogenic drugs because I never wanted my consciousness expanded one unnecessary iota.
I divide my time as follows: half the time I sleep, the other half I dream. I never dream when I sleep, for that would be a pity, for sleeping is the highest accomplishment of genius.
What do you think, would not one tiny crime be wiped out by thousands of good deeds?
Night, in which everything was lost, went reaching out, beyond stars and sun. Stars and sun, a few bright grains, went spiraling round for terror, and holding each other in embrace, there in a darkness that outpassed them all, and left them tiny and daunted. So much, and himself, infinitesimal, at the core of nothingness, and yet not nothing.
Because your brain uses information from the areas around the blind spot to make a reasonable guess about what the blind spot would see if only it weren't blind, and then your brain fills in the scene with this information. That's right, it invents things, creates things, makes stuff up! It doesn't consult you about this, doesn't seek your approval. It just makes its best guess about the nature of the missing information and proceeds to fill in the scene.
Men who have greatness within them don't go in for politics.
I belonged to the generation that grew up under National Socialism, and was blinded and led astray - and allowed itself to be led astray.
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