“If Stupidity got us into this mess, then why can’t it get us out?” — Will Rogers
Quotations
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“Happiness, whether consisting in pleasure or virtue, or both, is more often found with those who are highly cultivated in their minds and in their character, and have only a moderate share of external goods, than among those who possess external goods to a useless extent but are deficient in higher qualities.” — Aristotle
“Money only appeals to selfishness and always tempts its owners irresistibly to abuse it. Can anyone imagine Moses, Jesus, or Gandhi armed with the money-bags of Carnegie?” — Albert Einstein, The World As I See It, 1949
Where wealth and freedom reign, contentment fails,
And honour sinks where commerce long prevails.
— Oliver Goldsmith, The Traveller, 1764
“The essence of philosophy is that a man should so live that his happiness shall depend as little as possible on external things.” – Epictetus
“The most necessary disposition to relish pleasures is to know how to be without them.” — Marquise de Lambert, A Mother’s Advice to Her Son, 1726
“It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly.” — Bertrand Russell
“Who is rich? He that is content. Who is that? Nobody.” — Benjamin Franklin
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“Basic research is what I am doing when I don’t know what I am doing.” — Wernher von Braun
“An expert is a man who has made all the mistakes which can be made, in a narrow field.” — Niels Bohr
“An expert is one who knows so much about so little that he neither can be contradicted, nor is worth contradicting.” — Henry Ward
The Road Not Taken
“You know, many a man realizes late in life that if when he was a boy he had known what he knows now, instead of being what he is he might be what he won’t; but how few boys stop to think that if they knew what they don’t know instead of being what they will be, they wouldn’t be?” — Stephen Leacock, How to Make a Million Dollars, 1910
There was a young man of Cadiz,
Who inferred that life is what it is,
For he early had learnt,
If it were what it weren’t,
It could not be that which it is.
— J. St. Loe Strachey (editor of The Spectator)
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“The origin of science is in the desire to know causes; and the origin of all false science and imposture is in the desire to accept false causes rather than none; or, which is the same thing, in the unwillingness to acknowledge our own ignorance.” — William Hazlitt
Observations
More maxims of La Rochefoucauld:
- “We endeavour to get Reputation by those Faults we won’t amend.”
- “We never desire vehemently what we desire rationally.”
- “Whatever Distrust we may have of People’s Sincerity, we always believe they are more ingenuous with us than with any body else.”
- “We promise according to our Hopes, and perform according to our Fears.”
- “Repentance is not so much Remorse for what we have done, as Fear of its Consequences.”
- “Our Enemies come nearer the Truth in their Judgment of us, than we do ourselves.”
- “We don’t despise all those who have Vices, but we despise all those who have no Virtues.”
- “None but such as are contemptible are apprehensive of Contempt.”
- “That Conduct often seems ridiculous the secret Reasons of which are wise and solid.”
- “Censorious as the World is, it oftner shews Favour to false Merit, than it does Injustice to true.”
- “Our Fancy sets the Value on all we receive from Fortune.”
And “We take less Pains to be happy, as to appear so.”
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“It vexes me greatly that having to earn my living has forced me to interrupt the work and to attend to small matters.” — Leonardo
“I cannot afford to waste my time making money.” — Louis Agassiz
“How in the hell could a man enjoy being awakened at 6:30 a.m. by an alarm clock, leap out of bed, dress, force-feed, shit, piss, brush teeth and hair, and fight traffic to get to a place where essentially you made lots of money for somebody else and were asked to be grateful for the opportunity to do so?” — Charles Bukowski
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“A science is any discipline in which the fool of this generation can go beyond the point reached by the genius of the last generation.” — Max Gluckman
Insight
Maxims of François VI, Duc de La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680):
- “An extraordinary Haste to discharge an Obligation is a Sort of Ingratitude.”
- “Did we not flatter ourselves, the Flattery of others could never hurt us.”
- “Before we passionately desire a Thing, we should examine into the Happiness of its Possessor.”
- “Few Men are able to know all the Ill they do.”
- “Fortune never seems so blind to any as to those on whom she bestows no Favours.”
- “Happiness is in the Taste, not in the Thing; and we are made happy by possessing what we love, not what others think lovely.”
- “Men may boast of their great Actions; but they are oftner the Effects of Chance, than of Design.”
- “The Glory of great Men ought always to be rated according to the Means used to acquire it.”
- “We should manage our Fortune as our Constitution; enjoy it when good, have Patience when ’tis bad, and never apply violent Remedies but in Cases of Necessity.”
- “We bear, all of us, the Misfortunes of other People with heroic Constancy.”
- “Whatever great Advantages Nature can give, she can’t without Fortune’s Concurrence make Heroes.”
And “Hope, deceitful as it is, carries us thro’ Life agreeably enough.”
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“It is only through fiction that facts can be made instructive or even intelligible.” — George Bernard Shaw
“People think that because a novel’s invented, it isn’t true. Exactly the reverse is the case. Biography and memoirs can never be wholly true, since they cannot include every conceivable circumstance of what happened. The novel can do that.” — Anthony Powell
“I write fiction and I’m told it’s autobiography, I write autobiography and I’m told it’s fiction, so since I’m so dim and they’re so smart, let them decide what it is or it isn’t.” — Philip Roth