So here is the next instalment of interesting, amusing and thought-provoking quotes recently encountered. And as with our “Interesting Links” posts these posts will now be monthly, on or around the middle day of the month. So here goes …
The best thing that can happen to someone before they retire is that they hate their job at the end. Those that have loved it and are restructured out or pushed out have a harder time. If I had a recipe for good retirement it would be to have a bad job in the last three working years.
[Ken LeClair, professor of psychiatry]
Maybe our western culture just doesn’t help people deal with their feelings. It’s complicated, loving someone is hard. Staying the course with someone is hard. You can’t just keep upgrading people like you do with your phone.
[Jeanette Winterson]
Secresy is an instrument of conspiracy; it ought not, therefore, to be the system of a regular government.
[Jeremy Bentham, in his essay “Of Publicity”, published in 1843. And yes, “Secresy” is the spelling in the original]
There is no difference between talking to someone with their top on as there is with their top off. I think you make a choice whether to make the situation sexual, and it’s usually the relationship you have with the person that makes it erotic.
The skin is more beautiful than the garment in which it is clothed.
[Michelangelo]
We have come into the world naked, and all the animals are naked, why should man hide his body behind clothes?
[Osho]
Is obesity a result of overeating? Yes, maybe, and no. There’s science and then there is the agenda of the various health, fitness and diet businesses mixed up in this. Sometimes fatness is the result of inadvertent repetitive dieting which can upset our metabolism. Sometimes it’s a result of eating the non-food foods that industry peddles. These drench our tastebuds with fat, salt and sugar combinations that overstimulate without giving a sense of satisfaction — other than reaching the end of the packet. Sometimes it is because these same non-food foods take a too-quick journey through our body without being properly digested.
Sometimes, as epigeneticists are discovering, it is to do with changes that occurred two generations ago, when food was very scarce. Sometimes … it is to do with changes caused by early and frequent antibiotic use which alter the flora in our gut.
And then there’s the psychology of it all. Sometimes it’s because the pressure towards restraint leads to rebellion, to a desire to gorge ourselves, as consumerism invites us to with beautiful food-porn programmes. Sometimes of course, fat is a form of individual protest in a world that valorises thin. Sometimes fat is a result of emotional hungers perceived to be too difficult to express any other way. Sometimes fat is a result of absorbing a family preoccupation with food and then contesting it. Sometimes fat, like anorexia, is an eating difficulty that shows. Most don’t, but fat does.
[Susie Orbach; Guardian; 14/12/2015]
Tell people there’s an invisible man in the sky who created the universe, and the vast majority will believe you. Tell them the paint is wet, and they have to touch it to be sure.
[George Carlin]
None of us knows the future. You always have to act with only the knowledge you possess at the moment. You’re going to make mistakes. When you’ve made a mistake … it’s best to apologize or try to put it right …
[Brad Warner; Hardcore Zen; 21/12/2015]
Yes, English can be weird. It can be understood through tough thorough thought, though.
[David Burge, @iowahawkblog on Twitter]
No pleasure is worth giving up for the sake of two more years in a geriatric home at Weston-super-Mare.
[Kingsley Amis]
Verily I say unto you, All sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of men, and blasphemies wherewith soever they shall blaspheme: But he that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost hath never forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damnation.
[Mark, 3:28-29. Such a good way to get rid of Jehovah’s Witnesses et al.]
Last year, 44 Americans were shot by Muslim terrorists. By comparison, 52 Americans were shot by toddlers. Which raises the question: Why isn’t the government doing more to protect us from toddlers? Think about it. They don’t share our values. They barely speak English. They steal our welfare. They have no marketable skills. They’re prone to angry outbursts. Worst of all? Most of them aren’t even Christians. How long until we say enough is enough and deport these free-loading parasites once and for all?
[Jeremy McLellan, comedian]
In the Elizabethan play Wily Beguiled, a character named Will Cricket boasts that women find him attractive because he possesses “a sweet face, a fine beard, comely corpse, and a carousing codpiece”.
[From: What goes up must come down: a brief history of the codpiece]
Rationality is what we do to organize the world, to make it possible to predict. Art is the rehearsal for the inapplicability and failure of that process.
[Brian Eno]
History is changed by people who get pissed off. Only neo-vegetables enjoy using computers the way they are at the moment. If you want to make computers that really work, create a design team composed only of healthy, active women with lots else to do in their lives and give them carte blanche. Do not under any circumstances consult anyone who (a) is fascinated by computer games (b) tends to describe silly things as ‘totally cool’ (c) has nothing better to do except fiddle with these damn things night after night.
[Brian Eno]
A child educated only at school is an uneducated child.
[George Santayana]
The problem with today’s world is that everyone believes they have the right to express their opinion AND have others listen to it. The correct statement of individual rights is that everyone has the right to an opinion, but crucially, that opinion can be roundly ignored and even made fun of, particularly if it is demonstrably nonsense.
[Professor Brian Cox]
More next month.