Here’s our monthly round up of interesting, inspiring or amusing quotes encountered in the last few weeks. In no special order …
… one of the great mantras of our times, that anything bad that happens to us must be somebody else’s fault. It cannot be us who are to blame …
[Christopher Snowdon at Spectator Health]
No cookbook can cure the fact that we are meat rotting from the inside, unable to recapture the fading glow of youth.
I never let schooling interfere with my education.
[Mark Twain]
Too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.
[President Kennedy]
As democracy is perfected, the office of the President represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day, the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be occupied by a downright fool and a complete narcissistic moron.
[HL Mencken]
I don’t think people realise how the establishment became established. It simply stole the land and property off the poor, surrounded themselves with weak minded sycophants for protection, gave themselves titles and have been wielding power ever since.
[Tony Benn]
Puritanism. The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.
[HL Mencken]
Brexit is like the English civil war, when families and friends found themselves split between King and parliament. Other historical divides — as over the reformation, the corn laws or Irish home rule — tended to cohere round religion or self-interest.
[Simon Jenkins; Guardian; 31 March 2016]
Political psychologists increasingly dismiss reason as having any role in electoral decision … Thus Brexit. It is declining into a sort of primitivism, a debate over what is inherently unknown. Argument is hijacked by hobgoblins.
[Simon Jenkins; Guardian; 31 March 2016]
Battle not with voles, lest ye become a vole; for if you gaze into the burrow, the burrow gazes back into you.
Dogs are for people who need to be worshiped as gods. Cats are for people who are strong enough to put up with gods standing on their chests at 5:00 AM and demanding a sacrifice.
I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book.
[Groucho Marx]
Train people well enough so they can leave, treat them well enough so they don’t want to.
[Richard Branson]
Machiavelli defines the central thrust of human nature as ambition, the drive for power bringing with it wealth and corruption.
[Sarah Dunant; BBC News Magazine]
Being a little weird is just a natural side-effect of being awesome.
[Sue Fitzmaurice]
More next month.