Thursday, June 22, 2017

Marcus Aurelius

Say to yourself first thing in the morning: today I shall meet people who are meddling, ungrateful, aggressive, treacherous, malicious, unsocial. All this has afflicted them through their ignorance of true good and evil. But I have seen that the nature of good is what is right, and the nature of evil what is wrong; and I have reflected that the nature of the offender himself is akin to my own - not a kinship of blood or seed, but a sharing in the same mind, the same fragment of divinity. Therefore I cannot be harmed by any of them, as none will infect me with their wrong. Nor can I be angry with my kinsman or hate him. We were born for cooperation, like feet, like hands, like eyelids, like the rows of upper and lower teeth. So to work in opposition to one another is against nature: and anger or rejection is opposition.

Wednesday, March 23, 2016

H. L. Mencken

Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard.

Saturday, January 30, 2016

Shana Alexander

The sad truth is that excellence makes people nervous.

Voltaire

Appreciation is a wonderful thing: It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well.

Thursday, July 16, 2015

Louis C.K.

The only time you look in your neighbor's bowl is to make sure that they have enough. You don't look in your neighbor's bowl to see if you have as much as them.

Thursday, October 02, 2014

Charles Bukowski

For those who believe in God, most of the big questions are answered. But for those of us who can't readily accept the God formula, the big answers don't remain stone-written. We adjust to new conditions and discoveries. We are pliable. Love need not be a command nor faith a dictum. I am my own god. We are here to unlearn the teachings of the church, state, and our educational system. We are here to drink beer. We are here to kill war. We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us.

Friday, August 15, 2014

Garrison Keillor

They say such nice things about people at their funerals that it makes me sad to realize that I'm going to miss mine by just a few days.