You will become way less concerned with what other people think of you when you realize how seldom they do.
David Foster WallaceRead
I had four hundred thousand pages of continental philosophy and lit theory in my head. And by God, I was going to use it to prove to him that I was smarter than he was.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects the struggle of intellectual ego and the desire to prove one's intelligence over others.
David Foster Wallace highlights the tension between knowledge and the ego, conveying a sense of urgency to leverage vast intellectual resources not just for understanding, but to assert superiority. The quote suggests that the accumulation of knowledge can sometimes fuel competition rather than shared enlightenment.
Themes
KnowledgeIntellectCompetitionPhilosophyEgo
In practice
Example use cases
This quote could be used in a lecture on the relationship between knowledge and ego in academic settings.
More from David Foster Wallace
All quotes →Everything in my own immediate experience supports my deep belief that I am the absolute center of the universe, the realest, most vivid and important person in existence.
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It seems important to find ways of reminding ourselves that most 'familiarity' is meditated and delusive.
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Under fun's new administration, writing fiction becomes a way to go deep inside yourself and illuminate precisely the stuff you don't want to see or let anyone else see, and this stuff usually turns out (paradoxically) to be precisely the stuff all writers and readers share and respond to, feel.
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Acceptance is usually more a matter of fatigue than anything else.
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Bliss - a-second-by-second joy and gratitude at the gift of being alive, conscious - lies on the other side of crushing, crushing boredom. Pay close attention to the most tedious thing you can find (Tax Returns, Televised Golf) and, in waves, a boredom like you’ve never known will wash over you and just about kill you. Ride these out, and it’s like stepping from black and white into color. Like water after days in the desert. Instant bliss in every atom.
David Foster WallaceRead
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