Welcome to this month’s collection of quotes gleaned from my delvings into obscure knowledge.
We are self-centred and selfish, but we need to be wisely selfish, not foolishly so. If we neglect others, we too lose. We have to support others. We can educate people to understand that the best way to fulfil their own interest is to be concerned about the welfare of others.
[Dalai Lama]
There are no ends in administration. Only loose ends. Administration is eternal.
[https://twitter.com/YesSirHumphrey/status/1394387572533743621?s=09]
England’s response to this public health crisis has been characterised by a lack of transparency – or, even worse, a deliberate suppression of material that is at odds with the Government’s narrative.
[Editorial in British Medical Journal; https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2021/05/28/the-uks-response-to-new-variants-a-story-of-obfuscation-and-chaos/]
Johnson is after all the most accomplished liar in public life – perhaps the best liar ever to serve as prime minister. Some of this may have been a natural talent – but a lifetime of practice and study has allowed him to uncover new possibilities which go well beyond all the classifications of dishonesty attempted by classical theorists like St Augustine. He has mastered the use of error, omission, exaggeration, diminution, equivocation and flat denial. He has perfected casuistry, circumlocution, false equivalence and false analogy. He is equally adept at the ironic jest, the fib and the grand lie; the weasel word and the half-truth; the hyperbolic lie, the obvious lie, and the bullshit lie.
[Rory Stewart, former Tory MP and minister]
Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it.
[Terry Pratchett]
There are no differences but differences of degree between different degrees of difference and no difference.
[William James, American philosopher]
Computers are like Old Testament gods; lots of rules and no mercy.
[Joseph Campbell]
Dancing is a perpendicular expression of a horizontal desire.
[George Bernard Shaw]
Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city.
George Burns, American comedian]
Who also said …
Sex after 90 is like trying to shoot pool with a rope. Even putting my cigar in its holder is a thrill.
The only way to keep your health is to eat what you don’t want, drink what you don’t like, and do what you’d rather not.
[Mark Twain]
The Bible is the charter of women’s serfdom, and, as a consequence, of man’s degradation. It, like all superstitious God-books, is the outcome of ignorance ruled by selfishness.
[Lady Florence Dixie, 1855-1905]
Religion says this is the law of God; I say it is that of man. Superstition declares it to be a divine ordinance; I maintain it is a barbaric one. Superstition and barbaric law go hand in hand. It is the former which creates the latter.
[Lady Florence Dixie, 1855-1905]