#perplexity

I never appreciated 'positive heroes' in literature. They are almost always cliches, copies of copies, until the model is exhausted. I prefer perplexity, doubt, uncertainty, not just because it provides a more 'productive' literary raw material, but because that is the way we humans really are. ↗

— Jose Saramago

#always #appreciated #because #cliches #copies

Perplexity is the beginning of knowledge. ↗

— Khalil Gibran

#knowledge #perplexity

The perplexity of life arises from there being too many interesting things in it for us to be interested properly in any of them. ↗

— Gilbert K. Chesterton

#arises #being #interested #interesting #interesting things

From My Life's Work by Cardinal Newman God has created me to do Him some definite service. He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another. I have my mission. I may never know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next...I shall do good. I shall do His work if I do but keep His commandments and serve Him in my calling. Therefore I will trust Him. Whatever, wherever I am. I can never be thrown away. If I am in sickness, my sickness may serve Him, if I am in sorrow, my sorrow may serve Him. My sickness, or perplexity, or sorrow may be necessary causes of some great end, which is quite beyond us. He does nothing in vain. ↗

— John Henry Newman

#job-hunting #life-mission #perplexity #life

Only crime and the criminal, it is true, confront us with the perplexity of radical evil; but only the hypocrite is really rotten to the core. ↗

— Hannah Arendt

#core #crime #criminal #evil #hypocrite