This month’s selection of interesting, amusing and thought-provoking quotes encountered …
There come moods when these clothes of ours are not only too irksome to wear, but are themselves indecent.
[Walt Whitman]
We had an opportunity to be the most influential country in Europe, but our very marginal decision to leave the EU, based on a combination of simple ignorance and some sort of myopic xenophobia, has weakened both this country and the whole of western Europe. Even so, Europe remains the most culturally interesting continent and the one where the finest wines in the world continue to be made …
[Charlie Boston; Understanding European Wines]
Over the past couple of decades, scientists have discovered that bones are participants in complex chemical conversations with other parts of the body, including the kidneys and the brain; fat and muscle tissue; and even the microbes in our bellies. It’s as if you suddenly found out that the studs and rafters in your house were communicating with your toaster.
[https://knowablemagazine.org/article/health-disease/2022/fun-facts-about-bones-more-just-scaffolding]
London Zoo at half-term is a cheerful cacophony with blue macaws out-screaming six-year-olds.
[Emma Beddington; https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/mar/06/the-zoologist-sticking-her-neck-out-in-the-battle-of-the-sexes]
The majority of spiders are sexual cannibals … the big spiders in the middle of webs [are] always female; males are basically wandering useless sacks of sperm.
[Lucy Cooke; quoted by Emma Beddington at https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/mar/06/the-zoologist-sticking-her-neck-out-in-the-battle-of-the-sexes]
No one is finally dead until the ripples they cause in the world die away … The span of someone’s life is only the core of their actual existence.
[Terry Pratchett]
Always keep a bottle of Champagne in the fridge for special occasions. Sometimes the special occasion is that you’ve got a bottle of Champagne in the fridge.
[Hester Browne]
When the rich rob the poor it’s called business. When the poor fight back it’s called violence.
[unknown]
Sexuality is completely natural, however mainstream culture and society have falsely turned it into something considered to be controversial and perverse. We should never condemn, fear or distort any of the beautiful and sacred properties of Nature.
[Damien Carrion]
That’s the thing about depression: A human being can survive almost anything, as long as she sees the end in sight. But depression is so insidious, and it compounds daily, that it’s impossible to ever see the end. The fog is like a cage without a key.
Compassion is to have a sense of concern for others and the community. Look at today’s world—we are interdependent. We can’t think only of my nation’s interests. We have to take the whole world into account. Let us live happily together, helping each other rather than fighting.
[Dalai Lama]