I was in love with New York.
I do not mean 'love' in any colloquial way,
I mean that I was in love with the city,
the way you love the first person who ever touches you
and never love anyone quite that way again.
Joan Didion, Slouching Towards Bethlehem
Getting what you go after is success;
but liking it while you are getting it is happiness.
Bertha Damon, A Sense of Humus
Meditation is always becoming. Meditation is always transformation. Meditation always moves us from one place to another; from unconsciousness to awareness, from tension to relaxation, from being scattered to being centered, from a shallow relationship with our environment and ourselves to a deeper one, from sleep to wakefulness, from a sense of God’s absence to the sense that God was in this place all along and I didn’t know it!
Alan Lew, Be Still and Get Going: A Jewish Meditation Practice for Real Life
Most of the warriors I knew
Have settled down to gardening, and the morning Times,
Tired of stalking ghosts
and the melody of secret rhythms
above the sound of traffic
and other monotonous voices,
Finally content to stare and wonder.
Most of the warriors I knew
Have unsaddled stallions and built a fence in the backyard,
Weary of studying the clouds
And the shadows creeping across mountains
beyond the flash of neon
and other pretentious symbols,
Finally content to stare and wonder.
Most of the warriors I knew
Have died before their time and are forgotten
Save in the memory of their sons
And the dreams they seldom share
beyond the taint of time
and other unimportant measures
Finally content to stare and wonder.
James Kavanaugh
There is a famous story that you and Springsteen were invited to a dinner party at Sinatra’s house around the time you did that TV tribute to him. Had you met him before? Did you feel like he knew your stuff?
Not really. I think he knew “The Times They Are a-Changin’” and “Blowin’ In the Wind.” I know he liked “Forever Young,” he told me that. He was funny, we were standing out on his patio at night and he said to me, “You and me, pal, we got blue eyes, we’re from up there,” and he pointed to the stars. “These other bums are from down here.” I remember thinking that he might be right.
Bob Dylan, Q&A with Bill Flanagan, March 2017
People seldom see the halting and painful steps
by which the most insignificant success is achieved.
Anne Mansfield Sullivan, Helen Keller: The Story of My Life
That of which we are not aware, owns us.
James Hollis, Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life
St. Ciaran of Clonmacnoise was St. Kevin's soul-friend, and they were very close. When Ciaran approached death, he said: "Let me be carried to a small height." Then angels went to meet his soul, filling as they did all the space between heaven and earth. He was carried back into the little church, and raising his hands, he blessed his people. Then he told the brethren to shut him up in the church until Kevin should come from Glendalough.
Kevin arrived three days after Ciaran's death, having left his monastery as soon as he heard that his closest friend was dying, but he had been very delayed. At once Ciaran's spirit returned from heaven and reentered his body so that he could commune with Kevin and welcome him. The two friends stayed together for a long time, engaged in mutual conversation, and strengthening their friendship.
Excerpted from: https://orthodoxwiki.org/Kevin_of_Glendalough
When something is festering
in your memory or your imagination,
laws of silence don’t work,
it’s like shutting a door and locking it
on a house on fire
in hope of forgetting that the house is burning.
But not facing a fire doesn’t put it out.
Silence about a thing just magnifies it.
It grows and festers in silence, becomes malignant.
Tennessee Williams, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
Some of these things are true
and some of them lies.
But they are all good stories.
Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall
True happiness, we are told,
consists in getting out of one's self;
but the point is not only to get out -
you must stay out;
and to stay out
you must have some absorbing errand.
Henry James, Roderick Hudson
The joy of the new, hip, happening, double-espresso Dublin
is that you can blame any strange mood on coffee deprivation.
This never worked in the era of tea,
at least not at the same level of street cred.
Tana French, In the Woods
The spiritual disposition of a poet inclines to catastrophe.
Osip Mandelstam, Selected Essays
Whereas elsewhere in Europe,
no educated man would be caught dead speaking a vernacular,
the Irish thought that all language was a game.
Thomas Cahill, How the Irish Saved Civilization
some believe in general motors,
others in market purity;
some believe in earnings per share
and their financial security-
still more believe in politics,
and everything they've read;
but i believe the sun
when its shining on my head.
A. Cohen
In Ireland, you go to someone's house, and she asks you if you want a cup of tea. You say no, thank you, you're really just fine. She asks if you're sure. You say of course you're sure, really, you don't need a thing. Except they pronounce it ting. You don't need a ting. Well, she says then, I was going to get myself some anyway, so it would be no trouble. Ah, you say, well, if you were going to get yourself some, I wouldn't mind a spot of tea, at that, so long as it's no trouble and I can give you a hand in the kitchen. Then you go through the whole thing all over again until you both end up in the kitchen drinking tea and chatting.
In America, someone asks you if you want a cup of tea, you say no, and then you don't get any damned tea.
I liked the Irish way better.
C.E. Murphy, Urban Shaman
The only winner in the War of 1812 was Tchaikovsky.
David Gerrold, The War Against the Chtorr
The true secret of happiness lies in taking
a genuine interest in all the details of daily life.
William Morris, The Beauty of Life
In Ireland the inevitable never happens and the unexpected constantly occurs.
Sir John Pentland Mahaffy, Mahaffy: A Biography of an Anglo-Irishman
If you’ve never eaten toasted Ormeau Veda bread
with Dromona butter and homemade lemon curd,
do not despair, because this is the breakfast food
that you will be served in heaven.
Adrian McKinty, Hang on St. Christopher
In a time of drastic change one can be too preoccupied
with what is ending or too obsessed with what seems to be beginning.
In either case one loses touch with the present
and with its obscure but dynamic possibilities.
What really matters is openness, readiness, attention, courage to face risk.
You do not need to know precisely what is happening,
or exactly where it is all going.
What you need is to recognize the possibilities
and challenges offered by the present moment,
and to embrace them with courage, faith, and hope.
In such an event, courage is the authentic form taken by love.
Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander
I cannot tell you how it was,
But this I know: it came to pass
Upon a bright and sunny day
When May was young; ah, pleasant May!
As yet the poppies were not born
Between the blades of tender corn;
The last egg had not hatched as yet,
Nor any bird foregone its mate.
I cannot tell you what it was,
But this I know: it did but pass.
It passed away with sunny May,
Like all sweet things it passed away,
And left me old, and cold, and gray.
Christina Rossetti
Anyone who has ever struggled with poverty
knows how extremely expensive it is to be poor.
James Baldwin, Nobody Knows My Name
When people say clean as a whistle,
they forget that a whistle is full of spit.
George Carlin, Napalm & Silly Putty
One doesn't discover new lands
without consenting to lose sight,
for a very long time,
of the shore.
Andre Gide, The Counterfeiters
You have to dream things out.
It keeps a kind of an ideal before you.
You see it first in your mind
and then you set about to try and make it like the ideal.
If you want a garden,
why, I guess you've got to dream a garden.
Bess Streeter Aldrich, The Bess Streeter Aldrich Reader
I began to think of the soul as if it were a castle
made of a single diamond or of very clear crystal,
in which there are many rooms,
just as in Heaven there are many mansions.
Teresa of Ávila, The Interior Castle
To what purpose, April, do you return again?
Beauty is not enough.
You can no longer quiet me with the redness
Of little leaves opening stickily.
I know what I know.
The sun is hot on my neck as I observe
The spikes of the crocus.
The smell of the earth is good.
It is apparent that there is no death.
But what does that signify?
Not only under ground are the brains of men
Eaten by maggots.
Life in itself
Is nothing,
An empty cup, a flight of uncarpeted stairs.
It is not enough that yearly, down this hill,
April
Comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers.
Edna St. Vincent Millay
Until you dig a hole,
you plant a tree,
you water it
and make it survive,
you haven't done a thing.
You are just talking.
Wangari Maathai, Unbowed, A Memoir
A very dangerous state of mind: thinking one understands.
Paul Valéry, The Collected Works of Paul Valery
But why diminish your soul being run-of-the-mill at something?
Mediocrity: now there is ugliness for you.
Mediocrity's a hairball coughed up on the Persian carpet of Creation.
Tom Robbins, Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas
For after all, the best thing one can do
When it is raining, is to let it rain.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Birds of Killingworth
Because deep in my heart, I know there is always something to write about,
but there is also always nothing - and terrifyingly little air between.
Nick Cave, Red Hand Files 286
Abraham Joshua Heschel, Who Is Man?
may the tide
that is entering even now
the lip of our understanding
carry you out
beyond the face of fear
may you kiss
the wind then turn from it
certain that it will
love your back may you
open your eyes to water
water waving forever
and may you in your innocence
sail through this to that
Lucille Clifton
[Optimism] is not about providing a recipe for self-deception.
The world can be a horrible, cruel place,
and at the same time it can be wonderful and abundant.
These are both truths.
There is not a halfway point;
there is only choosing which truth to put in your personal foreground.
Sonja Lyubomirsky, The How of Happiness
It takes something more than intelligence to act intelligently.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Crime and Punishment
There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact.
Arthur Conan Doyle, The Boscombe Valley Mystery
Progress doesn't come from early risers—
progress is made by lazy men looking for easier ways to do things.
Robert Heinlein, Time Enough For Love
Religion will not regain its old power
until it can face change
in the same spirit as does science.
Its principles may be eternal,
but the expression of those principles
requires continual development.
Alfred North Whitehead, Science and the Modern World
Let the rain kiss you
Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops
Let the rain sing you a lullaby
The rain makes still pools on the sidewalk
The rain makes running pools in the gutter
The rain plays a little sleep song on our roof at night
And I love the rain.
Langston Hughes
I should dearly love that the world should be ever so little better for my presence. Even on this small stage we have our two sides, and something might be done by throwing all one's weight on the scale of breadth, tolerance, charity, temperance, peace, and kindliness to man and beast. We can't all strike very big blows, and even the little ones count for something.
Arthur Conan Doyle, The Stark Munro Letters
Real stupidity beats artificial intelligence every time.
Terry Pratchett, Hogfather
Didn't come up here to read. Came up here to hit.
Hank Aaron to catcher Yogi Berra, who told him to turn his bat around so he could see the trademark during the 1957 World Series, Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes
Somebody once said we never know
what is enough until we know
what's more than enough.
Billie Holiday, Lady Sings the Blues
I could enjoy the simple life
with a small living quarters,
a scratched album of Johnny Cash
and a Box of Twinkies
Stanley Victor Paskavich, Return to Stantasyland
[Continental Bakery created Twinkies April 6, 1930]
The word "resurrection" has for many people the connotation
of dead bodies leaving their graves or other fanciful images.
But resurrection means the victory of the New state of things,
the New Being born out of the death of the Old.
Resurrection is not an event that might happen in some remote future,
but it is the power of the New Being to create life out of death,
here and now, today and tomorrow.
Paul Tillich, The New Being
Flat you are as a door mat
and as homely.
No crust, no glaze, you lack
a cosmetic glow.
You break with a snap.
You are dry as a twig
split from an oak
in midwinter.
You are bumpy as a mud basin
in a drought.
Square as a slab of pavement,
you have no inside
to hide raisins or seeds.
You are pale as the full moon
pocked with craters.
What we see is what we get
honest, plain, dry
shining with nostalgia
as if baked with light
instead of heat.
The bread of flight and haste
In the mouth you promise, home.
Marge Piercy
We must look at ourselves differently.
We are freer than we think.
We haven't begun to live yet.
The man whose light has come on in his head,
in his dormant sun, can never be kept down or defeated.
We can redream this world and make the dream real.
Human beings are gods hidden from ourselves.
Ben Okri, The Famished Road
There’s no way to repay a mother’s love, or lack of it.
Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic’s Notebook
Now the LORD spoke to Moses in the Wilderness of Sinai,
in the first month of the second year
after they had come out of the land of Egypt, saying:
"Let the children of Israel keep the Passover at its appointed time.
"On the fourteenth day of this month, at twilight,
you shall keep it at its appointed time.
According to all its rites and ceremonies you shall keep it."
Book of Numbers, chap. 9, verse 1-3
There's something in the human personality
which resents things that are clear,
and conversely, something which is attracted
to puzzles, enigmas, and allegories.
Stanley Kubrick, Kubrick: Inside a Film Artist's Maze
Silence is the general consecration of the universe.
Silence is the invisible laying on
of the Divine Pontiff's hands upon the world.
Silence is at once the most harmless
and the most awful thing in all nature.
It speaks of the Reserved Forces of Fate.
Silence is the only Voice of our God.
Herman Melville, Pierre: or, The Ambiguities
And the weaver said, Speak to us of Clothes.
And he answered:
Your clothes conceal much of your beauty, yet they hide not the unbeautiful.
And though you seek in garments the freedom of privacy you may find in them a harness and a chain.
Would that you could meet the sun and the wind with more of your skin and less of your raiment,
For the breath of life is in the sunlight and the hand of life is in the wind.
Some of you say, “It is the north wind who has woven the clothes we wear.”
And I say, Ay, it was the north wind,
But shame was his loom, and the softening of the sinews was his thread.
And when his work was done he laughed in the forest.
Forget not that modesty is for a shield against the eye of the unclean.
And when the unclean shall be no more, what were modesty but a fetter and a fouling of the mind?
And forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair.
Kahlil Gibran
David Frost:
What would you like people to think about you when you've gone?
Muhammad Ali:
I'd like for them to say:
He took a few cups of love.
He took one tablespoon of patience,
One teaspoon of generosity,
One pint of kindness.
He took one quart of laughter,
One pinch of concern.
And then, he mixed willingness with happiness.
He added lots of faith,
And he stirred it up well.
Then he spread it over a span of a lifetime,
And he served it to each and every deserving person he met.
From a 1974 interview with David Frost
The moment when you really experience
that you have created yourself being whatever way you are,
at that same moment you will never have to be that way again.
Werner Erhard
Werner Erhard: the Transformation of a Man: the Founding of est, William Bartley
Baseball is not life.
It is a fiction, a metaphor.
And a ballplayer is a man
who agrees to uphold that metaphor
as though lives were at stake.
David James Duncan, The Brothers K
Celebrity is a mask that eats into the face.
As soon as one is aware of being “somebody” to be watched
and listened to with extra interest, input ceases,
and the performer goes blind and deaf in his overanimation.
One can either see or be seen.
John Updike, Self-Consciousness: Memoirs
Freud said he didn’t know what women wanted.
I know what women want.
They want a whole lot of people to talk to.
What do men want?
They want a lot of pals,
and they wish that people wouldn’t get so mad at them.
Kurt Vonnegut, God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian
Instead of indulging in jealousy, greed, in relishing themselves,
there are men who keep their hearts alert to the stillness
in which time rolls on and leaves us behind. …
those who are open to the wonder will not miss it.
Faith is found in solicitude for faith,
in an inner care for the wonder that is everywhere.
Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Holy Dimension
Begin again to the summoning birds
to the sight of the light at the window,
begin to the roar of morning traffic
all along Pembroke Road.
Every beginning is a promise
born in light and dying in dark
determination and exaltation of springtime
flowering the way to work.
Begin to the pageant of queuing girls
the arrogant loneliness of swans in the canal
bridges linking the past and future
old friends passing though with us still.
Begin to the loneliness that cannot end
since it perhaps is what makes us begin,
begin to wonder at unknown faces
at crying birds in the sudden rain
at branches stark in the willing sunlight
at seagulls foraging for bread
at couples sharing a sunny secret
alone together while making good.
Though we live in a world that dreams of ending
that always seems about to give in
something that will not acknowledge conclusion
insists that we forever begin.
Brendan Kennelly
If there is magic on this planet,
it is contained in water.
Loren Eiseley, The Immense Journey
I would not sell my soul to be playing college ball somewhere in this country tonight, but I would give it long and serious consideration.
Pat Conroy, My Losing Season: A Memoir
Once upon a time at a pub, Patrick ordered a whiskey, but was shocked and offended when the bartender’s pour did not fill his glass. He said the man had a devil in his cellar feeding on his dishonesty, so he’d best get his act together. The man immediately changed his ways. Like Scrooge on Christmas Day, he became the guy who filled everyone’s glass to the rim.
Today that story is remembered in the “Drowning of the Shamrock.” Each St. Patrick’s Day at the very end of the night, shamrocks are dunked into the last round of drinks (ideally whiskey) and a toast is offered to St. Patrick, in honor of his preferential option for the full pour.
Jim McDermott, America, The Jesuit Review, 2022
When you think you have done enough, do a little more,
because someone out there is working harder than you.
Larry Bird, When the Game Was Ours
And they came and said to him, “Teacher, we know that you are sincere, and show deference to no one; for you do not regard people with partiality, but teach the way of God in accordance with truth. Is it lawful to pay taxes to Emperor Caesar, or not? Should we pay them, or should we not?” But knowing their hypocrisy, he said to them, “Why are you putting me to the test? Bring me a denarius [coin] and let me see it.” And they brought one. Then he said to them, “Whose image is this, and whose title?” They answered, “Caesar’s.” Jesus said to them, “Give to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”
12:14-17; Matthew 22:15-22; Luke 20:20-26
Diverse interpreters have speculated for ages about what it is that Jesus is saying belongs to God and should be given to God. Our spiritual virtues perhaps? Our immortal souls? Our tithes? Our life commitments? Our moral conscience? Our conformance to church law? Through history, “give to Caesar” has confused preachers and canon lawyers who apologized for Caesar’s needful claim on much of a Christian’s life.
But mystery writer [Dorothy] Sayers discovered that the dialog poses and solves a riddle. Jesus holds up the Roman coin, asking whose image it bears. Caesar’s image is how we recognize its owner, they reply. Then what belongs to God must have the same proof. What bears God’s image? You and I do: our whole human selves, as Genesis 2 declares. Then give your whole self to God, because you bear God’s image.
Rick Fabian, Jesus and Paul Woven Together
A love affair is something to survive.
This is a relationship -
something to keep tidy.
So my love for you reveals itself
In my exceptionally thorough grocery lists
And I know how much you love me when
You scrub out the shower
Two weekends in a row.
I am a romantic janitor,
Performing constant maintenance
on my happiness.
Give me a kiss.
I just took out the trash
And swept the sidewalk.
Patrick Califia
Being an artist means, not reckoning and counting,
but ripening like the tree which does not force its sap
and stands confident in the storms of spring
without the fear that after them may come no summer.
It does come. But it comes only to the patient,
who are there as though eternity lay before them,
so unconcernedly still and wide.
I learn it daily, learn it with pain
to which I am grateful: patience is everything!
Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
Language is courage:
the ability to conceive a thought,
to speak it, and by doing so to make it true.
Salman Rushdie, The Satanic Verses
Life is not always a matter of holding good cards,
but sometimes, playing a poor hand well.
Dan Millman, Sacred Journey of the Peaceful Warrior
One of the secrets of a happy life
is continuous small treats,
and if some of these can be inexpensive
and quickly procured so much the better.
Iris Murdoch, The Sea, the Sea
I object to being told that I am saving daylight
when my reason tells me that I am doing nothing of the kind...
At the back of the Daylight Saving scheme,
I detect the bony, blue-fingered hand of Puritanism,
eager to push people into bed earlier, and get them up earlier,
to make them healthy, wealthy, and wise in spite of themselves.
Robertson Davies, The Papers of Samuel Marchbanks
Join the union, girls,
and together say
Equal Pay for Equal Work.
Susan B. Anthony, The Revolution
Dear March—Come in—
How glad I am—
I hoped for you before—
Put down your Hat—
You must have walked—
How out of Breath you are—
Dear March, how are you, and the Rest—
Did you leave Nature well—
Oh March, Come right upstairs with me—
I have so much to tell—
I got your Letter, and the Birds—
The Maples never knew that you were coming—
I declare - how Red their Faces grew—
But March, forgive me—
And all those Hills you left for me to Hue—
There was no Purple suitable—
You took it all with you—
Who knocks? That April—
Lock the Door—
I will not be pursued—
He stayed away a Year to call
When I am occupied—
But trifles look so trivial
As soon as you have come
That blame is just as dear as Praise
And Praise as mere as Blame—
Emily Dickinson
Actually, I doubt that it was "progress" that most interested [physicist] Richard [Feynman]. He was always searching for patterns, for connections, for a new way of looking at something, but I suspect his motivation was not so much to understand the world as it was to find new ideas to explain. The act of discovery was not complete for him until he had taught it to someone else.
I remember a conversation we had a year or so before his death, walking in the hills above Pasadena. We were exploring an unfamiliar trail and Richard, recovering from a major operation for the cancer, was walking more slowly than usual. He was telling a long and funny story about how he had been reading up on his disease and surprising his doctors by predicting their diagnosis and his chances of survival. I was hearing for the first time how far his cancer had progressed, so the jokes did not seem so funny. He must have noticed my mood, because he suddenly stopped the story and asked, "Hey, what's the matter?"
I hesitated. "I'm sad because you're going to die."
"Yeah," he sighed, "that bugs me sometimes too. But not so much as you think." And after a few more steps, "When you get as old as I am, you start to realize that you've told most of the good stuff you know to other people anyway."
We walked along in silence for a few minutes. Then we came to a place where another trail crossed and Richard stopped to look around at the surroundings. Suddenly a grin lit up his face.
"Hey," he said, all trace of sadness forgotten, "I bet I can show you a better way home."
And so he did.
Danny Hillis, Richard Feynman and The Connection Machine, longnow.org
The willow which bends to the tempest
often escapes better than the oak which resists it.
Walter Scott, The Works of Sir Walter Scott: The pirate
It’s not always easy to tell the difference
between thinking and looking out of the window.
Wallace Stevens, Letters
Waiting is one of the great arts.
Margery Allingham, The Tiger In The Smoke
We cannot live securely in a world which is not our own,
in a world which is interpreted for us by others.
An interpreted world is not a home.
Part of the terror is to take back our own listening,
to put our ears to our own inner voices, to see our own light,
which is our birthright, and comes to us in silence.
Hildegard of Bingen, Warrior of Light,
by Elaine Bellezza, Gnosis magazine, 1991
You have this need to be famous,
my therapist said, but I think
you should get a job first. If
you look at all the famous people,
they all had jobs. George Bush
never looks like he’s doing anything,
but he was once a President. You have
to start from somewhere. Otherwise
you’ll be famous inside
your own head, but so is everyone else.
Hal Sirowitz
This story might be half-apocryphal, but apparently on May 19th, 1780, the sky went dark over Connecticut. We don’t know what blotted out the sun—probably some forest fires burning nearby—but the deeply Christian Connecticuters figured it was a sign the End Times had come. At the State House in Hartford, several senators suggested that everybody should return home and prepare to meet their Maker.
Amidst the commotion, Senator Abraham Davenport of Stamford stood up and said: "I am against adjournment. The day of judgment is either approaching, or it is not. If it is not, there is no cause for an adjournment; if it is, I choose to be found doing my duty. I wish therefore that candles may be brought."
Candles were brought, and the work continued.
Adam Mastroianni, Experimental History blog
Childhood may be defined as the age of play;
therefore some children are never young,
and some adults are never old.
Will Durant, Fallen Leaves: Last Words on Life, Love, War and God
Do you see the consequences of the way we have chosen to think about success? Because we so profoundly personalize success, we miss opportunities to lift others onto the top rung. … We are too much in awe of those who succeed and far too dismissive of those who fail. And most of all, we become much too passive. We overlook just how large a role we all play — and by “we” I mean society — in determining who makes it and who doesn’t.
Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers: The Story of Success
A great many worries can be diminished
by realizing the unimportance
of the matter which is causing the anxiety.
Bertrand Russell, Conquest of Happiness
Old age is like a plane flying through a storm.
Once you’re aboard, there’s nothing you can do.
You can’t stop the plane, you can’t stop the storm, you can’t stop time.
So one might as well accept it calmly, wisely.
Golda Meir, 1972 interview with Oriana Fallaci
There are many outside the church who seem to be inside,
there are many inside the church who seem to be outside...
There are some whom the church has whom God has not,
there are some whom God has whom the church has not.
Attributed to St. Augustine
Just past dawn, the sun stands
with its heavy red head
in a black stanchion of trees,
waiting for someone to come
with his bucket
for the foamy white light,
and then a long day in the pasture.
I too spend my days grazing,
feasting on every green moment
till darkness calls,
and with the others
I walk away into the night,
swinging the little tin bell
of my name.
Ted Kooser
His philosophy was a mixture of three famous schools —
the Cynics, the Stoics and the Epicureans —
and summed up all three of them in his famous phrase,
“You can’t trust any bugger further than you can throw him,
and there’s nothing you can do about it, so let’s have a drink.”
Terry Pratchett, Small Gods
To live is so startling, it leaves but little room for other occupations,
though friends are, if possible, an event more fair.
Letters of Emily Dickinson, edited by Mabel Loomis Todd
Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.
Simone Weil, Simone Weil: A Life
