Life is an operation which is done in a forward direction. One lives toward the future, because to live consists inexorably in doing, in each individual life making itself.
Doing
We must have constantly present in our minds the difference between independence and liberty. Liberty is a right of doing whatever the laws permit, and if a citizen could do what they forbid he would no longer be possessed of liberty.
Sometimes you have to make a complete disaster of your life in such an epic way that it will be absolutely clear to you what you’ve been doing.
When I make a film, I’m not doing it purely for political reasons. If I just wanted to do that, I’d run for office.
The talent of success is nothing more than doing what you can do well, and doing well whatever you do without thought of fame. If it comes at all it will come because it is deserved, not because it is sought after.
And if we don’t have a test, what we may end up doing is going back to what this country has done before. We could use social class and we still do, but in the 50s, it was, do you have the right last name and are your parents in privileged positions?
The World Development Movement, to take just one example, is doing good work. Some political parties are, too.
When you’re doing kidney transplants, you have to find out who can exchange kidneys with whom, doing blood tests to make sure it’s true. You can’t just work on the preliminary data. Then you have to organize the logistics.
Doing easily what others find difficult is talent; doing what is impossible for talent is genius.
The selfsame procedure which zoology, a branch of the natural sciences, applies to the study of animals, anthropology must apply to the study of man; and by doing so, it enrolls itself as a science in the field of nature.