“the only way to enjoy even a weed is to feel unworthy even of a weed.”
G.K. Chesterton, quoted by Eric Scheske in Gilbert! magazine Vol. 4 #1 (September 2000)
“Indeed, it would be paradoxical if the end were amusement; if we toiled and suffered all our lives long to amuse ourselves. For we choose practically everything for the sake of something else, except happiness, because it is the end. To spend effort and toil for the sake of amusement seems silly and unduly childish; but, on the other hand the maxim of Anacharsis, ‘Play to work harder,’ seems to be on the right lines, because amusement is a form of relaxation, and people need relaxation because they cannot exert themselves continuously.”
Aristotle Ethics
“Who am I that the children of men should have shaped and carved for me four extra wooden legs besides the two that were given me by the gods?”
G.K. Chesterton, “On Being Moved,” in Alberto Manguel, ed., On Lying in Bed and Other Essays by G.K. Chesterton
In my latest National Post column I say we must get over our belief that we can live without trade-offs or anything bad ever happening, and make real-world choices about quarantines and everything else.
“What’s the point of being a hedonist if you’re not having a good time?”
Lily Tomlin’s "The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe" show, quoted in The New Republic Oct. 7, 1991
“After all that has been said of the levity and inconstancy of human nature, it appears evidently from experience that a man is of all sorts of luggage the most difficult to be transported.”
Adam Smith The Wealth of Nations
“As long as a man stands in his own way, everything seems to be in his way.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson, quoted on www.brainyquote.com/quotes/ralph_waldo_emerson_384371
“what William James charitably called ‘earnest and helpless minds.’”
Daniel Boorstin The Genius of American Politics