Reference Vault

Values act like a sieve: they filter out the empty cravings that come from comparison and they let through only the things that genuinely serve your spirit.

Desire is about what the object seems to promise us: a fuller, richer existence.

When we feel the weight of our limits, we start reaching toward idols to imitate, goals to chase, places to explore, people to meet. What we’re really chasing is a sense of immortality or infinity, something that lives longer than we ever will. We want to be remembered long after we’ve left a conversation, the company, the world.

every desire points to a way of life, a kind of person we long to become.

The painful part of loneliness is the realization that most people are ass-kissers and friendship is rare.

Lust is the deceiver. Lust wrenches our lives until nothing matters except the one we think we love, and under that deceptive spell we kill for them, give all for them, and then, when we have what we have wanted, we discover that it is all an illusion and nothing is there. Lust is a voyage to nowhere, to an empty land, but some men just love such

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You lack spirit, not another fashion identity. You don’t need another aesthetic, you need stronger values.

the idea that shopping is a material issue, and overconsumption is a budgeting problem, rather than a spiritual problem.

Most real knowledge, knowledge worth attaining, lives in the hands . It must be cultivated gradually, like a garden. Really, it must be grown. Most real knowledge is the result of doing something deliberately for a long time and steadily making small improvements.