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One can be instructed in society,
one is inspired only in solitude.

(Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

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Non essere assolutamente certo è, credo, una delle cose essenziali della razionalità.
(B. Russell)

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The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honours the servant and has forgotten the gift.

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The wise use of leisure, it must be conceded, is a product of civilization and education.
(B. Russell)

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Perhaps you can judge the inner health of a land by the capacity of its people to do nothing - to lie abed musing, to amble aboutt aimlessly, to sit having coffee - because whoever can do nothing, letting his thoughts go where they may, must be at peace with himself.
(Sebastian de Grazia)

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Many years ago Rudyard Kipling gave an address at McGill University in Montreal. He said one striking thing which deserves to be remembered. Warning the students against an over-concern for money, or position, or glory, he said: “Some day you will meet a man who cares for none of these things. Then you will know how poor you are.”
(Halford E. Luccock)

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Beauty begins the moment you decide to be yourself.
(Coco Chanel)

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Perchè viviamo
Ben singolare è la situazione di noialtri mortali. Ognuno di noi è su questa terra per una breve visita; egli non sa il perchè, ma assai spesso crede di averlo capito. Non si riflette profondamente e ci si limita a considerare un aspetto della vita quotidiana; siamo qui per gli altri uomini: anzitutto per coloro dal cui sorriso e dal cui benessere dipende la nostra felicità, ma anche per quella moltitudine di sconosciuti alla cui sorte ci incatena un vincolo di simpatia. Ecco il mio costante pensiero di ogni giorno: la vita esteriore ed interiore dipende dal lavoro dei contemporanei e da quello dei predecessori; io devo sforzarmi di dar loro, in eguale misura, ciò che ho ricevuto e ciò che ancora ricevo. Sento il bisogno di condurre una vita semplice e ho spesso la penosa consapevolezza di chiedere all'attività dei miei simili più di quanto non sia necessario. Mi rendo conto che le differenze di classe sociale non sono giustificate e che, in fin dei conti, trovano il loro fondamento nella violenza; ma credo anche che una vita modesta sia adatta a chiunque, per il corpo e per lo spirito.
(A. Einstein, Come Io Vedo il Mondo)

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Mi basta sentire il mistero dell'eternità della vita, avere la coscienza e l’intuizione di ciò che è, lottare attivamente per afferrare una particella, anche piccolissima, dell'intelligenza che si manifesta nella natura.
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Enough for me the mystery of the eternity of life, and the inkling of the marvellous structure of reality, together with the single-hearted endeavour to comprehend a portion, be it never so tiny, of the reason that manifests itself in nature.
(A. Einstein, Come Io Vedo il Mondo)

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Colui che non prova odio verso alcuna creatura, ma è amichevole e premuroso con tutti; che è libero dalla coscienza dell'io e dal desiderio di possesso; che è equanime nel dolore come nella gioia, disposto al perdono e sempre appagato; che pratica con perseveranza lo yoga, e con lo yoga cerca incessantemente di conoscere il Sé e di unirsi allo Spirito; colui che è dotato di ferma determinazione e affida la sua mente e il suo discernimento a Me: questi è un mio devoto, a Me caro.
(Bhagavad Gita, Cap XII, Versi 13-14)

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Maybe this is a good place to ask, who cares?
If our notions have always been bullied this way or that by outside forces, so what if our technologies start subtly shaping our ideas about good and bad TV shows, books, and fabric swatches? Maybe we want their ideas. (Who has better ideas about temperature than a thermostat?) Well, consider this warning from Neil Postman:

A young man who believes Madonna to have reached the highest pinnacle of musical expression lacks the sensibility to distinguish between the ascent and descent of humanity.
… Our youth must be shown that not all worthwhile things are instantly accessible and that there are levels of sensibility unknown to them.

Putting aside Postman’s grouchy attitude toward Madonna, he does make an important point. Some “levels of sensibility” cannot be shared and liked online, or turned into a funny GIF. Not all things that are worth loving are easy to love right away. It’s only a small portion of the larger culture that can thrive on platform technologies. Meanwhile, those things that cannot be reduced to 140 characters—the spinning chaos we sense standing before a Jackson Pollock canvas, the harrowing perfection we glimpse when reading a Virginia Woolf novel— can be loved only once we’ve earned them. Online, we blow in a wind of mass culture that is so pleasant and dreamlike—with mass taste projecting only the easy-to-consume—that we have little time for those more difficult, solitary tastes. Matthew Crawford notes in his book The World Beyond Your Head that the process of acquiring adult taste is in fact the opposite of entertainment—it requires work and education. “Does it have a future?” he asks. “The advent of engineered, hyperpalatable mental stimuli compels us to ask the question.” It also compels us to ask what we miss out on when we ditch Crawford’s idea of educated taste in favour of a taste based on mass entertainment and mass judgment.

The title of James Surowiecki’s book The Wisdom of Crowds often gets turned into a sound bite, suggesting that the masses know best. But those who have read more than the back cover know that Surowiecki is subtler than that. He describes how “groups that are too much alike find it harder to keep learning, because each member is bringing less and less new information to the table. Homogeneous groups … become progressively less able to investigate alternatives.” As we allow our personal taste to be dictated by online crowds, we’d be wise to keep that progression in mind. What began in the twentieth century with companies like McDonald’s and Disney producing massively shared food and entertainment has been followed in the twenty-first century with companies like Google and Amazon producing massively shared taste.

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The difference between Before and After is that today we need to safeguard our inner weirdo, seal it off and protect it from being buffeted. Learn an old torch song that nobody knows; read a musty, out-of-print detective novel; photograph a honey-perfect sunset and show it to no one. We may need to build new and stronger weirdo cocoons, in which to entertain our private selves. Beyond the sharing, the commenting, the constant thumbs-upping, beyond all that distracting gilt, there are stranger things waiting to be loved.

(Michael Harris - Solitude, In Pursuit of a Singular Life in a Crowded World)