by Alex Soojung-Kim Pang
"The ancient Greeks saw rest as a great gift, as the pinnacle of civilized life. The Roman Stoics argued that you cannot have a good life without good work. Indeed, virtually every ancient society, recognized that both work and rest were necessary for a good life: one provided the means to live, the other gave meaning to life." pg. 4
"The central feature of this state is a 'steady orientation of all our faculties toward a single object of study for a period of months or even years.' "
"Just as an astronomer exposes a photographic plate for hours to 'reveal stars so far away that even the most powerful telescopes fail to reveal them to the naked eye,' so too are 'time and concentration' needed to 'allow the intellect to perceive a ray of light in the darkness of the most complex problem.' " pp. 30 - 31
"This state of sustained concentration 'refines judgment, enriches analytical powers, spurs constructive imagination, and - by focusing all light of reason on the darkness of a problem - allows unforeseen and subtle relationships to be discovered.' " "Reaching it, he warns, requires 'severe abstention and renunciation.' One must avoid distractions like 'malicious gossip' and newspapers, the 'intellectual dispersion and waste of time required by social activity,' and anything else that loosens 'the creative tension of the mind' and 'that quality of tone that nerve cells acquire when adapted to a particular subject.' But this does not mean that the investigators tried to concentrate all the time. Diversions that are 'light and promote the association of new ideas' are to be taken freely. Long walks, art, music offer good material for break." pg. 31
"a man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life." - Charles Darwin
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