Topic: Oddities
Things to think about...
These will be published in tomorrow's edition of Just Above Sunset...
Week of June 6, 2004 ...
The disparity between romance and reality, the world of the beautiful people and the workaday world, gives rise to an ironic detachment that dulls pain but also cripples the will to change social conditions, to make even modest improvements in work and play, and to restore dignity to everyday life.
- Christopher Lasch, The Culture of Narcissism
Obstinacy and heat in sticking to one's opinions is the surest proof of stupidity.
- Michel Eyguem de Montaigne (1533-1592)
No man's opinions can be worth holding unless he knows how to deny them easily and gracefully upon occasion in the cause of charity.
- Samuel Butler (1835-1902)
In fact, what we call stupidity, though not an enlivening quality in common society, is nature's favorite resource for preserving steadiness of conduct and consistency of opinion.
- Walter Bagehot (1826-1877)
Fight someone every day, but never fight unimportant people.
- Alexandre Dumas
Doing good on even the tiniest scale requires more intelligence than most people possess. They ought to be content with keeping out of mischief; it's easier and doesn't have such frightful results as trying to do good in the wrong way. Twiddling the thumbs and having good manners are much more helpful, in most cases, than rushing about with good intentions and doing things.
- Aldous Huxley (1894-1963)
A flippant, frivolous man may ridicule others, may controvert them, may scorn them; but he who as any respect for himself seems to have renounced the right of thinking meanly of others.
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832)
Optimism and pessimism, as cosmic philosophies, show the same na?ve humanism. The great world, so far as we can know it from the philosophy of nature, is neither good nor bad, and is not concerned to make us either happy or unhappy. All such philosophies spring from self-importance and are best corrected by a little astronomy.
- Bertrand Russell (1872-1970)
Posted by Alan at 13:02 PDT
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