Well hello again folks. Having missed last month through being unwell, we have a bumper collection of quotes for you this month! So let’s go …
I want to get better at arguing. Not the bitter, exhausting kind … and not the kind that occurs when you put two French people in a room and within 90 seconds one of them is quoting Montaigne and the other has countered with Immanuel Kant, even though they are talking about, say, low-energy lightbulbs (about which neither of them previously had an opinion).
[Emma Beddington at https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/sep/18/why-do-i-pick-fights-with-my-husband-because-i-want-a-happy-marriage]
Briefing is over. Time for me to turn 1200 words of word salad notes into a piquant article for [journal’s] website, and stew all the peels and cores into a blog entry.
[Emily Lakdawalla; @elakdawalla on Twitter]
We see the ugly face of contemporary Britain in the people on the beaches abusing exhausted refugees even as they scramble to the shore. It makes one ashamed. And ashamed, of course to be living in the nation that elected this government …
[Hilary Mantel]
If you’re lucky enough to do well, it’s your responsibility to send the elevator back down.
[Jay Blades]
Investors seem inclined to regard the UK Conservative Party as a doomsday cult. Tax cuts are unlikely to give the UK a meaningful medium-term boost.
[Paul Donovan, Chief Economist, UBS Global Wealth Management]
Evidence is always partial. Facts are not truth, though they are part of it – information is not knowledge. And history is not the past – it is the method we have evolved of organising our ignorance of the past. It’s the record of what’s left on the record. It’s the plan of the positions taken, when we to stop the dance to note them down. It’s what’s left in the sieve when the centuries have run through it – a few stones, scraps of writing, scraps of cloth. It is no more “the past” than a birth certificate is a birth, or a script is a performance, or a map is a journey. It is the multiplication of the evidence of fallible and biased witnesses, combined with incomplete accounts of actions not fully understood by the people who performed them. It’s no more than the best we can do, and often it falls short of that.
[Hilary Mantel]
Growth is one of the stupidest purposes ever invented by any culture. We’ve got to have an enough. Always ask: growth of what, and why, and for whom, and who pays the cost, and how long can it last, and what’s the cost to the planet, and how much is enough?
[Donella Meadows]
and I will love you
‘til all the letters of your name
are filled with moss
[@19syllables on twitter]
My choice early in life was either to be a piano player in a whorehouse or a politician. And to tell the truth, there’s hardly any difference.
[Harry S Truman, 33rd president of the United States]
I think [says the Duke of Omnium] that we whom chance has led to be meddlers in the game of politics sometimes give ourselves hardly time enough to think what we are about … It seems to me that many men – men whom you and I know – embrace the profession of politics not only without political convictions but without seeing that it is proper that they should entertain them. Chance brings a young man under the guidance of this or that elder man. He has come of a Whig family, as was my case, or from some old Tory stock, and loyalty keeps him true to the interests which have first pushed him forward into the world. There is no conviction there.
[Anthony Trollope; The Prime Minister; h/t John Monaghan]
No person who can read is ever successful at cleaning out an attic.
[Ann Landers]
There are times when we must speak out, not because you are going to change the other person, but because if you don’t speak, they have changed you.
[unknown]
Being rude is easy. It does not take any effort and is a sign of weakness and insecurity. Kindness shows great self-discipline and strong self-esteem. Being kind is not always easy when dealing with rude people. Kindness is a sign of a person who has done a lot of personal work and has come to a great self-understanding and wisdom. Kindness is a sign of strength.
[unknown]
I do not think that I will ever reach a stage when I will say, “This is what I believe. Finished.” What I believe is alive … and open to growth.
[Madeleine l’Engle]
Before you argue with someone, ask yourself, is that person even mentally mature enough to grasp the concept of a different perspective. Because if not, there’s absolutely no point.
[Helen Mirren]
How many highly intuitive, intelligent and totally sane women and men have been labelled as crazy because they got too close to figuring out someone else’s bullshit.
[Alex Myles]
When you finally learn that a person’s behaviour has more to do with their internal struggle than it ever did with you, you learn grace.
[unknown]
When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down “happy”. They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t understand life.
[John Lennon]
As a Buddhist monk, I’m dedicated to promoting inter-religious harmony. All religions accept the value of warm-heartedness. Some believe in God; others have faith in karma. When I hear about fighting among religious people, I feel very sad – as if medicine has become poison.
[Dalai Lama]
Just because I disagree with you, does not mean that I hate you. We need to relearn that in our society.
[Morgan Freeman]
Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply.
[Stephen Covey]
His head was an hourglass; it could stow an idea, but it had to do it a grain at a time.
[Mark Twain]
I want adulthood to feel more magical than it does. Where is the mystery? Why does no one ask me to solve a riddle before I enter a building? When was the last time I made a potion?
[unknown]
You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life. Fall in love with some activity and do it! Nobody ever figures out what life is all about and it doesn’t matter.
[Richard Feynman]