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"Catch yourself the next time you are gossiping about somebody; if you are aware of it, it will
indicate an awful lot to you about yourself. Don't cover it up by saying that you are merely
inquisitive about others. It indicates restlessness, a sense of excitement, a shallowness, a
lack of real, profound interest in people which has nothing to do with gossip."
The First and Last Freedom, p.198 |
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"Most of us who read daily newspapers are filled with gossip, global gossip. It is all an escape
from ourselves, from our own pettiness, from our own ugliness. We think that through a superficial
interest in world events we are becoming more and more wise, more capable of dealing with our own
lives. All these, surely, are ways of escaping from ourselves, are they not? In ourselves we are
so empty, shallow; we are so frightened of ourselves. We are so poor in ourselves that gossip
acts as a form of rich entertainment, an escape from ourselves. We try to fill that emptiness in us
with knowledge, with rituals, with gossip, with group meetings - with the innumerable ways of
escape, so the escapes become all-important, and not the understanding of what is."
The First and Last Freedom, p.199 |
