I'm beginning to believe that Killer Illiteracy ought to rank near heart disease and cancer as one of the leading causes of death ...among Americans. What you don't know can indeed hurt you, and so those who can neither read nor write lead miserable lives, like Richard Wright's character, Bigger Thomas, born dead with no past or future.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
For the poison of hatred seated near the heart doubles the burden for the one who suffers the disease; he is burdened with his own... sorrow, and groans on seeing another's happiness.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
On the whole, "organic" illnesses of the body are viewed as a misfortune over which the victim has little control. Not so for "men...tal" illnesses. These diseases of the mind become diseases of the "self." We (our "selves") can distance ourselves from our "bodily" illnesses: "my leg is broken" or "my heart is failing." But, because of mind-body dualism, our mind is our self. "My mind is sick" is not differentiated psychologically from "I am sick." We cannot distance ourselves, take a detached view of our minds: we are our minds. When a disease affects brain function, the afflicted person and those around him feel that the "self" must be somehow in control of the disorder of "self."LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
It is not worth the while to let our imperfections disturb us always. The conscience really does not, and ought not to monopolize ...the whole of our lives, any more than the heart or the head. It is as liable to disease as any other part.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
No, the romance and the beauty were all gone from the river. All the value any feature of it had for me now was the amount of usef...ulness it could furnish toward compassing the safe piloting of a steamboat. Since those days, I have pitied doctors from my heart. What does the lovely flush in a beauty's cheek mean to a doctor but a "break" that ripples above some deadly disease? Are not all her visible charms sown thick with what are to him the signs and symbols of hidden decay? Does he ever see her beauty at all, or doesn't he simply view her professionally, and comment upon her unwholesome condition all to himself? And doesn't he sometimes wonder whether he has gained most or lost most by learning his trade?LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
This is just a job like any other job. I do it the best I can. It's never enough but I do it. When I go home, I don't take this st...uff with me, I leave it outside. But you, the way you carry it around inside, you must like it! Maybe you think that makes you a good cop. The way you're going you won't be good to anybody! Not even yourself! Somebody had to tell you. To get anything out of this life, you got to put something in it. From the heart!LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The heart may think it knows better: the senses know that absence blots people out. We really have no absent friends. The friend b...ecomes a traitor by breaking, however unwillingly or sadly, out of our own zone: a hard judgment is passed on him, for all the pleas of the heart.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »