A Quote by Carl Icahn
When friends and acquaintances are telling you [that] you are a genius, before you accept their opinion, take a moment to remember what you always thought of their opinions in the past.
Related Quotes
Subconsciously the genius is feared as an image breaker; frequently he does not accept the opinions of the mass, or man's opinion of himself.
The historian is looked upon as objective when he measures the past by the popular opinions of his own time, as subjective when he does not take these opinions for models. That man is thought best fitted to depict a period of the past, who is not in the least affected by that period. But only he who has a share in building up the future can grasp what the past has been, and only when transformed into a work of art can history arouse or even sustain instincts.
It is frequently the tragedy of the great artist for example Vincent Van Gogh, as it is of the great scientist, that he frightens the ordinary man. If he is more than a popular story-teller it may take humanity a generation to absorb and grow accustomed to the new geography with which the scientist or artist presents us. Even then, perhaps only the more imaginative and literate may accept him. Subconsciously the genius is feared as an image breaker; frequently he does not accept the opinions of the mass, or man's opinion of himself.
In the past, kong-an (koan) practicing meant checking someone's enlightenment. Now we use kong-ans to make our lives correct. . . . You must use kong-ans to take away your opinions. When you take away your opinions, your mind is clear like space, which means from moment to moment you can reflect any situation and respond correctly and meticulously.
I grew up in a pretty strict household in the sense that we just didn't have cable, so I wasn't familiar with what stand-up comedy was. I remember telling my friends that I thought stand-up comedy was like the thing that happened before the episode of 'Seinfeld.'
You have to listen to the people who have a negative opinion as well as those who have positive opinion. Just to make sure that you are blending all these opinions in your mind before a decision is made.
You accept things as they are, not as you wish they were in this moment...The past is history, the future is a mystery, and this moment is a gift. That is why this moment is called the present.
That's the great danger of sectarian opinions, they always accept the formulas of past events as useful for the measurement of future events and they never are, if you have high standards of accuracy.
A person who lives moment to moment, who goes on dying to the past, is never attached to anything. Attachment comes from the accumulated past. If you can be unattached to the past every moment, then you are always fresh, young, just born. You pulsate with life and that pulsation gives you immortality. You are immortal, only unaware of the fact.
I've always gone to gigs; I remember before I passed my driving test I'd convince various family members or friends' parents to take us to Dundee or Edinburgh to see James or A-ha.
I've done some stuff with Glenn Danzig before, and while I can't really say that we're friends, we're friendly acquaintances.
I got the bad press and the blogging and the email threats because people really didn't understand. They thought I was anti-gay. That's not true at all. My spiritual mom has a gay son. Even he was telling his friends "No, that's not true. She's so accepting of me." That doesn't mean I accept his lifestyle. It means I accept him as a human person and as a creation of God and a person of value.
Well do I remember the first night we met, how you questioned my opinion that first impressions are perfect. You were right to do so, of course, but even then I suspected what I've come to believe most passionately these past weeks: from that first moment, I knew you were a dangerous woman, and I was in great peril of falling in love." She thought she should say something witty here. She said, "Really?
We are seeing, then, that our experience is altogether momentary. From one point of view, each moment is so elusive and so brief that we cannot even think about it before it has gone. From another point of view, this moment is always here, since we know no other moment than the present moment. It is always dying, always becoming past more rapidly than imagination can conceive. Yet at the same time it is always being born, always new, emerging just as rapidly from that complete unknown we call the future. Thinking about it almost makes you breathless.
Acquaintances are always abundant; friends are always scarce!
So there was President Obama, giving his bazillionth speech on health care, droning yet again that “now is the hour when we must seize the moment,” the same moment he’s been seizing every day of the week for the past year, only this time his genius photo-op guys thought it would look good to have him surrounded by men in white coats.
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