أَحسَنُ مِن وَقفَةٍ عَلى طَلَلِ
كَأسُ عُقارٍ تَجري عَلى ثَمَلِ

يُديرُها أَحوَرٌ بِهِ هَيَفٌ
مُعتَدِلُ الخَلقِ راجِحُ الكَفَلِ

— أبو نواس

الشيءُ بالشيءِ يُذكَر:
على العكس من هذا، يكادُ الرواقيون يتطرّفون في إهانةِ الشعورِ وتهميشِه كأنه عالةٌ وعَوَق. هُم محقّون فيما يقولونه من تمحيصِ المشاعرِ والمواقِف وألّا يعمل بها المرءُ إلّا بعَد التثَبُّتِ والتحقّق. غيرَ أنّهم مخطِئونَ في التركيز على عمليةِ المشاعرِ practicality ونسيانِ جمالِّيَتِها. فمِنَ الوفاءِ حُزنُك على الحبيبِ المُفارِق، والعزيزِ المودَعِ في الثَّرى، وسَخطك على الدنيءِ والظّالِم، وضعفِكَ أمامَ الجمالِ الأخّاذ... وخَيرُ الأُمورِ أوسَطُها.

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أحاول ترويض نفسي على قبول النقد العلمي، وعدم اعتبار النصيحة إهانة شخصية، ومما أمثّله لها هذا المثال:

ألستُ أزعم أن تعلمي عبادة !
فلمَ إذا صوّب إنسان عبادتي المحضة قبلتُ منه وشكرتُه -كأن يراني أصلي لغير القبلة في فضاء ثم يعدّل وجهتي-، وإذا صوّب وجهتي في مسألة علمية أو سلوك أو أسلوب أنفتُ وعاندتُ.

اللهم ارزقنا الصدق والتعبّد بالعلم.

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They're basically a really sophisticated "auto-suggestion" program that you find in your keyboard

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To be sure, feelings are about something different. But what makes them different is that they are first and foremost about the body, that they offer us the cognition of our visceral and musculoskeletal state as it becomes affected by preorganized mechanisms and by the cognitive structures we have developed under their influence. Feelings let us mind the body, attentively, as during an emotional state, or faintly, as during a background state.

— Descartes' Error

When a member of the British royal family revealed that she had adopted one of the slum fashions and had had her navel pierced, no one was in the least surprised. Where fashion in clothes, bodily adornment, and music are concerned, it is the underclass that increasingly sets the pace. Never before has there been so much downward cultural aspiration.

— Life at The Bottom, by Theodore Dalrymple

The liberal assumption, in this as in most things, is that to understand is to approve (or at least to pardon), and therefore my disapproval indicated a lack of understanding.

— Life at The Bottom, by Theodore Dalrymple

تَذَكَّرتُ لَيلى وَالسِنينَ الخَوالِيا
وَأَيّامَ لا نَخشى عَلى اللَهوِ ناهِيا

وَيَومٍ كَظِلِّ الرُمحِ قَصَّرتُ ظِلَّهُ
بِلَيلى فَلَهّاني وَما كُنتُ لاهِيا

— قيس بن الملوح

It is important to realize, however, that knowing that a given chemical (manufactured inside or outside the body) causes a given feeling to occur is not the same as knowing the mechanism for how this result is achieved. Knowing that a substance is working on certain systems, in certain circuits and receptors, and in certain neurons, does not explain why you feel happy or sad. It is only the beginning of an explanation.
reducing depression to a statement about the availability of serotonin or norepinephrine in general–a popular statement in the days and age of Prozac–is unacceptably rude.

— Descartes' Error

اي وعلي

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