“L’humilité n’est souvent qu’une feinte soumission, dont on se sert pour soumettre les autres; c’est un artifice de l’orgueil qui s’abaisse pour s’élever; et bien qu’il se transforme en mille manières, il n’est jamais mieux déguisé et plus capable de tromper que lorsqu’il se cache sous la figure de l’humilité.”
Réflexions morales #254 in La Rochefoucauld Maximes
“Anxiety is a thin stream of fear trickling through the mind. If encouraged, it cuts a channel into which other thoughts are drained.”
“Robert Bloch, the screenwriter of the movie Psycho” quoted by John Ivison in National Post June 19, 2004
“In the world there is nothing more submissive and weak than water. Yet for attacking that which is hard and strong nothing can surpass it. This is because there is nothing that can take its place.”
“That the weak overcomes the strong/ And the submissive overcomes the hard/ Everyone in the world knows yet no one can put/ This knowledge into practice.”
Lao Tzu II.LXXVIII.186-187
In my latest Loonie Politics column I say the idea of national strategies where governments reform citizens is bad, including if one targets “Islamophobia”.
“There are four varieties in society: the lovers, the ambitious, observers and fools. The fools are the happiest.”
“Hippolyte Taine French critic and historian (1828-93)” quoted as “Thought du jour” in “Social Studies” in Globe & Mail Feb. 20, 2013
“Ce qui paraît générosité n’est souvent qu’une ambition déguisée qui méprise de petits intérêts, pour aller à de plus grands.”
Réflexions morales #246 in La Rochefoucauld Maximes
“To live without self-respect is to lie awake some night, beyond the reach of warm milk, phenobarbital, and the sleeping hand on the coverlet, counting up the sins of commission and omission, the trusts betrayed, the promises subtly broken, the gifts irrevocably wasted through sloth or cowardice or carelessness. However long we postpone it, we eventually lie down alone in that notoriously uncomfortable bed, the one we make ourselves. Whether or not we sleep in it depends, of course, on whether or not we respect ourselves.”
Joan Didion Slouching Toward Bethlehem
In my latest Epoch Times column I say the difficulty people have condemning calls for churches to burn is a worrying sign of our rapid descent into a vindictive and pitiless neopagan mindset.