Another selection of recently encountered quotes.
Times are bad. Children no longer obey their parents, and everyone is writing a book.
[Cicero]
[John Aubrey’s] thoughts and reactions are often so like ours that it comes as a shock to find that most people he knew could and did speak Latin, read by candlelight and had to dash outside to check the time on a sundial. He recognised the spread of London’s first coffee shops as a key democratic advance, an early equivalent of the internet, giving previously unimaginable access to everyone who wanted to make contact and keep in touch with a strange, fast-changing, often unsettling new era. ‘Before they opened, men only knew how to be acquainted with their own relations or societies. They were afraid, and stared at all who were not of their own communities.’
[Hilary Spurling, Spectator, 14/03/2015; reviewing Ruth Scurr, John Aubrey: My Own Life]
We never know the quality of someone else’s life though we seldom resist the temptation to assume and pass judgement.
[Tami Hoag, Dark Horse]
I do not want to deconstruct the pleasure of wine by trying to work out whether the aromas smell of bananas or apricots. If you analyse too much, you end up destroying the pleasure.
[Lionel Poilane, famous French baker]
They slipped briskly into an intimacy from which they never recovered.
[F Scott Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise]
In general, we look for a new law by the following process: First we guess it; then we compute the consequences of the guess to see what would be implied if this law that we guessed is right; then we compare the result of the computation to nature, with experiment or experience, compare it directly with observation, to see if it works. If it disagrees with experiment, it is wrong. In that simple statement is the key to science. It does not make any difference how beautiful your guess is, it does not make any difference how smart you are, who made the guess, or what his name is — if it disagrees with experiment, it is wrong.
[Richard Feynman]
Most people that I talk to [in Japan] don’t identify as Buddhist, even if they’ve grown up in a house with a butsudan altar, and go to Buddhist funerals with their family. Religious activity is something you can participate in without even believing in it, without having to change some core part of yourself. Religious activity is in many ways “just” a social role.
[Gesshin Greenwood @ That’s So Zen]
People say nothing is impossible, but I do nothing every day.
[AA Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh]
If all Printers were determin’d not to print any thing till they were sure it would offend no body, there would be very little printed.
[Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)]
Those of us who know not the secret of properly regulating our own existence on this tumultuous sea of foolish troubles which we call life are constantly in a state of misery while vainly trying to appear happy and contented. We stagger in the attempt to keep our moral equilibrium, and see forerunners of the tempest in every cloud that floats on the horizon. Yet there is joy and beauty in the rolls of the billows as they sweep outward toward eternity. Why not enter into their spirit or, like Liehtse, ride upon the hurricane itself?
[Kakuzo Okakura, The Book of Tea]
“Why do you look so sad?”
“Because you speak to me in words and I look at you with feelings.”
[Leo Tolstoy]
Walk Nude, and people won’t need to undress you with their eyes.
You are never as broken as you think you are. Sure, you may have a couple of scars and a couple of bad memories, but then again all great heroes do.
But I must leave you with a couple of my favourite quotes from Terry Pratchett …
And what is this?
“It is a cat. It arrived. It does not appear to wish to depart.”
The cat, a feral ginger tom, flicked a serrated ear and curled up in a tighter ball. Anything that could survive in Ankh-Morpork’s alleys, with their abandoned swamp dragons, dog packs and furriers’ agents, was not about to open even one eye for a bunch of floating nightdresses.
[Terry Pratchett, Thief of Time]
In ancient times cats were worshipped as gods; they have not forgotten this.
[Terry Pratchett]
More anon.

Another selection of recently encountered quotes.
To be ruled is to be kept an eye on, inspected, spied on, regulated, indoctrinated, sermonised, listed and checked-off, estimated, appraised, censured, ordered about, by creatures without knowledge and without virtues. To be ruled is, at every operation, transaction, movement, to be noted, registered, counted, priced, admonished, prevented, reformed, redressed, corrected.
[Pierre-Joseph Proudhon]
After a good dinner one can forgive anybody, even one’s own relations.
[Oscar Wilde, A Woman of No Importance]
I think I’ve discovered the secret of life — you just hang around until you get used to it.
[Charles M Schulz]
Hell is empty and all the devils are here.
[William Shakespeare, The Tempest]
5% of the people think; 10% of the people think they think; and the other 85% would rather die than think.
[TA Edison]
Compare with that other often quoted statistic: 5% of people can think and do; 5% of people cannot think; the other 90% can think but don’t bother.
I have no idea what day it is and I’m eating cold parsnips for breakfast. The Christmas brain wipe is complete, fresh mind ready for 2015.
[Girl on the Net ‏@girlonthenet on Twitter]
I’ve never had a humble opinion. If you’ve got an opinion, why be humble about it?
[Joan Baez]
Being a housewife and a mother is the biggest job in the world, but if it doesn’t interest you, don’t do it.
[Katharine Hepburn]
I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity.
[Edgar Allan Poe]
A truly great library has something in it to offend everyone.
[Unknown]
In our dreams we may all be anarchists, but in our actions, for the vast majority of the time, we’re the most rigid of conformists.
[Will Self; Foreword to Bradley L Garrett, Subterranean London]
This perfect democracy fabricates its own inconceivable enemy, terrorism. It wants, actually, to be judged by its enemies rather than by its results. The history of terrorism is written by the State and it is thus instructive. The spectating populations must certainly never know everything about terrorism, but they must always know enough to convince them that, compared with terrorism, everything else seems rather acceptable, in any case more rational and democratic!
[Debord, Comments on the Society of the Spectacle (1984); quoted by Will Self; Foreword to Bradley L Garrett, Subterranean London]
London, that great cesspool into which all the loungers and idlers of the Empire are irresistibly drained.
[Arthur Conan Doyle, A Study in Scarlet (1887)]
The game is up for Zone 1; soon it will exist only as a nucleus of tourist hell, the city will become defined by its sprawl and the heart of it will be like Centre Parcs, but with less wholesome family bike rides and more pay-per-hour Gumtree day brothels.
[Anonymous comment on central London]

Another selection of recently encountered bon mots.
The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign.
[John Stuart Mill, On Liberty]
We cannot expect to be protected against things which offend us but do us no actual harm.
[John Stuart Mill]
I CHOOSE
To live by choice, not by chance,
To be motivated, not manipulated,
To be useful, not used,
To make changes, not excuses,
To excel, not compete.
I choose self-esteem, not self-pity,
I choose to listen to my inner voice,
not to the random opinions of others.
[American Indian]
I have been really rather horrified by the fact … that people have begun to think that perhaps succeeding in politics is a matter of putting your hand into the taxpayers’ pockets and redistributing wealth. It is not. Succeeding in polities is, as I said when I started, enlarging-up liberty, enlarging-up the people, giving the incentives to success, giving the framework for that success and the task of Government strictly limited.
[Margaret Thatcher]
Mr Ives’ style is sadly familiar here … at any rate in households where the baby or the cat has access to the piano.
[Percy Goetschius, on the music of Charles Ives, in the journal Music & Letters]
Why waste time learning when ignorance is instantaneous.
[Calvin & Hobbes at www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/2014/11/20/
Without deviation progress is not possible.
[Frank Zappa]
I have noticed even people who claim everything is predestined, and that we can do nothing to change it, look before they cross the road.
[Stephen Hawking]
We live in capitalism, its power seems inescapable — but then, so did the divine right of kings.
[Ursula Le Guin]
Be like water making its way through cracks. Do not be assertive, but adjust to the object, and you shall find a way round or through it.
[Bruce Lee]
I have always been of the opinion that hard work is simply the refuge of people who have nothing to do.
[Oscar Wilde]
I’m not lost for I know where I am. But however, where I am may be lost.
[AA Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh]
Lu-Tze had long considered that everything happens for a reason, except possibly football.
[Terry Pratchett, Thief of Time]

Yet another selection of recently encountered bon mots.
If people never did silly things nothing intelligent would ever get done.
[Wittgenstein]
What is true during dreamless sleep is true no matter whether you can recall the experience and write about it or not. What is true in a whorehouse in Bangkok is true whether you visit it and take Polaroids or not. What is true for six-legged aliens on the fifth planet circling Epsilon Centauri is true whether you go there and talk to them or not. You may never know the life your toothbrush leads when you’re not around but it’s certainly real.
[Brad Warner; Hardcore Zen: Punk Rock, Monster Movies and the Truth about Reality]
Man is the religious animal. He is the only religious animal. He is the only animal that has the True Religion, several of them. He is the only animal that loves his neighbour as himself and cuts his throat, if his theology isn’t straight.
[Mark Twain]
To have his path made clear for him is the aspiration of every human being in our beclouded and tempestuous existence.
[Joseph Conrad]
He isn’t a household name even in his own living room.
[David Mellor]
Every scar comes with a story, a memory. Our scars make us who we are. And I’m not only talking about physical scars. We have many scars on our heart and in our mind. Some of these we proudly show off as a sort of trophy of our accomplishments. Others we prefer to keep hidden … every scar has changed the course of our life and is proof of what we’ve been through and what we’ve endured and made it through.
I wouldn’t change one scar. While there are things in my life I wish I would’ve handled differently or avoided altogether, I can never regret those decisions or experiences because they have made me who I am. And I’m OK with that.
[Stephanie Hughes at The Stolen Colon]
As the scholar Paula Arai wrote in a review of Richard Jaffe’s book on clerical marriage, “Men escape domestic duties by marrying. Women escape domestic duties by taking monastic vows!”
[Gesshin at That’s So Zen]
What some people don’t understand is that naturism is designed to heal negative body image. It’s the truest form of body acceptance.
[Steve White on Twitter]
Intuition is the universe telling you what you really want to do. The problem is that we have been taught since birth to drown out our intuition with thought before we can really even understand what those intuitions are.
[Brad Warner; There is No God and He is Always with You]
Water is the softest thing, yet it can penetrate mountains and earth. This shows clearly the principle of softness overcoming hardness.
[Lao-tzu (thanks John Monaghan)]
The Sage falls asleep
Not because he ought to
Nor even because he wants to
But because he is sleepy.
[Lao-Tsu]
At all costs, the Christian must convince the heathen and the atheist that God exists, in order to save his soul. At all costs, the atheist must convince the Christian that the belief in God is but a childish and primitive superstition, doing enormous harm to the cause of true social progress. And so they battle and storm and bang away at each other. Meanwhile, the Taoist Sage sits quietly by the stream, perhaps with a book of poems, a cup of wine, and some painting materials, enjoying the Tao to his hearts content, without ever worrying whether or not Tao exists. The Sage has no need to affirm the Tao; he is far too busy enjoying it!
[Raymond Smullyan, The Tao is Silent]
The Tao does not talk. That’s another reason I like the Tao so much; it doesn’t talk! I hate people who talk too much. When I’m in company, I like to be the one to talk; others should just respectfully listen!
Is it not marvellous that I can talk to the Tao to my heart’s content, and the Tao never contradicts me or answers back? The Tao never criticizes me for being egocentric or talking too much.
When I talk about talking to the Tao, the more sophisticated and psychoanalytically oriented reader will say that I am not really talking to the Tao, I am really talking to myself. But this is not so! Since all words come from the Tao, my talking to the Tao is not really me talking to myself but the Tao talking to itself! So, you see, the Tao talks to itself. Yet the Tao does not talk, it is silent! Is this not a remarkable paradox?
[Raymond Smullyan, The Tao is Silent]
In a rare uncalculating moment, Boris Johnson wrote last year that, if Britain finally ended its “sterile debate” over Europe by leaving the EU, it would quickly discover “that most of our problems are not caused by Brussels, but by chronic British short-termism, inadequate management, sloth, low skills and a culture of easy gratification and under-investment”.
[Michael White; What if Britain left the EU?; Guardian; 04/11/2014]

Another selection of amusing and/or inspiring quotes encountered in the last few weeks. In no particular order …
Successful psychopaths are going to end up in all the high end jobs, in charge of companies, making millions. The unsuccessful psychopaths are the ones that end up in jail.
[Amy Jones, Liverpool Hope University]
Hope (apathy), is the greatest evil of all. Hope is apathy because hope is doing nothing while hoping that someone else (person, god, chance) will rescue you. The Greeks understood this. Some time in the last 2,000 years, hope stopped being evil, and turned into a good thing.
[unknown]
Don’t underestimate the value of Doing Nothing, of just going along, listening to all the things you can’t hear, and not bothering.
[AA Milne]
[Politicians] talk like the priests of an oriental church, in a Coptic language based on scripture we’re too uneducated to understand.
[Armando Iannucci on the Scottish referendum; Observer; 21/09/2014]
Be very, very careful what you put into that head, because you’ll never, ever get it out.
[Cardinal Wolsey]
Whatever it is you’re seeking won’t come in the form you’re expecting.
[Haruki Murakami]
A mind is like a parachute. It doesn’t work if it is not open.
[Frank Zappa]
I don’t understand why when we destroy something created by man we call it vandalism, but when we destroy something created by nature we call it progress.
[Ed Begley Jr]
The Dalai Lama, when asked what surprised him most about humanity, answered:
“Man. Because he sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health. And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived.”
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.
[Aldous Huxley ]
Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home — so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world … Without concerned citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world.
[Eleanor Roosevelt]
Oh to be fish again now the nymphs are here.
[unknown]