“The alternative to perfection of self is perfection of others: Either I will concentrate on me and my welfare or on others and their welfare; in other words, mind my own business or mind other people’s business.”
Leonard Read Let Freedom Reign
“If a man thinks about his physical or moral state, he usually discovers that he is ill.”
Goethe, quoted as “Thought du jour” in Globe & Mail July 10, 2000
“generally it is good, to commit the beginnings of all great actions to Argus, with his hundred eyes, and the ends to Briareus, with his hundred hands; first to watch, and then to speed.”
Francis Bacon, Bacon’s Essays (edited with Introduction and Notes by F.G. Selby).
“Remembrance is the only paradise out of which we cannot be driven away. Pleasure is the flower that fades, remembrance is the lasting perfume. Remembrances last longer than present realities; I have preserved blossoms for many years, but never fruits.”
Bruce Lee, Striking Thoughts
“My weakness as a traveler is that the world seems to me so amusing everywhere that it is hardly worthwhile to travel.”
G.K. Chesterton in “The Outline of a City” in The Resurrection of Rome, quoted in Gilbert Magazine Vol. 12 #5 (March 2009)
“there is still more in us of the chimp than the baboon.”
Elaine Morgan The Descent of Woman
In my latest National Post column I say the search for life in space is boooring because only life with photosynthesis is interesting and even if we find it, which seems highly unlikely, it won’t solve any of our moral or even technological problems here on Earth.
“To shorten the winter, borrow some money due in the spring.”
W.J. Vogel quoted as “Thought du jour” in “Social Studies” in Globe & Mail December 16, 2003 [but I think Benjamin Franklin got there first with “Those have a short Lent who owe money to be paid at Easter.”]