"being able to quote cleverly"

I'm reading The Flight of the Eagle, by Jiddu Krishnamurti. Excerpts:

The beauty of freedom is that you do not leave a mark. The eagle in its flight does not leave a mark; the scientist does. Inquiring into this question of freedom there must be, not only the scientific observation, but also the flight of the eagle that does not leave a mark at all; both are required; there must be both the verbal explanation and the nonverbal perception--for the description is never the actuality that is described; the explanation is obviously never the thing that is explained; the word is never the thing.

Can the sorrow in daily life end? Unless the mind changes radically our living has very little meaning--going to the office every day, earning a livelihood, reading a few books, being able to quote cleverly, being very well-informed--a life which is empty, a real bourgeois life. And then as one becomes aware of this state of affairs, one begins to invent a meaning to life; find some significance to give to it; one searches out the clever people who will give one the significance, the purpose, of life--which is another escape from living. This kind of living must undergo a radical transformation.

Can one die, psychologically, to all one's past, to all the attachments, fears, to the anxiety, vanity, and pride, so completely that tomorrow you wake up a fresh human being? You will say, 'How is this to be done, what is the method?' There is no method, because 'a method' implies tomorrow; it implies that you will practice and achieve something eventually, tomorrow, after many tomorrows. But can you see immediately the truth of it--see it actually, not theoretically--that the mind cannot be fresh, innocent, young, vital, passionate, unless there is an ending, psychologically, to everything of the past? But we do not want to let the past go because we are the past; all our thoughts are based on the past; all knowledge is the past; so the mind cannot let go; any effort it makes to let go is still part of the past, the past hoping to achieve a different state.

The mind must become extraordinarily quiet, silent; and it does become extraordinarily quiet without any resistance, without any system, when it sees this whole issue. Man has always sought immortality; he paints a picture, puts his name on it, that is a form of immortality; leaving a name behind, man always wants to leave something of himself behind. What has he got to give--apart from technological knowledge--what has he of himself to give? What is he? You and I, what are we, psychologically? You may have a bigger bank account, be cleverer than I am, or this or that; but psychologically, what are we?--a lot of words, memories, experiences, and these we want to hand over to a son, put in a book, or paint in a picture, 'me.' The 'me' becomes extremely important, the 'me' opposed to the community, the 'me' wanting to identify itself, wanting to fulfill itself, wanting to become something great--you know, all the rest of it. When you observe that 'me,' you see that it is a bundle of memories, empty words: that is what we cling to; that is the very essence of the separation between you and me, they and we.