“Sir, it seems that you are no better a judge of human beings than you are a specimen of one.”
Buster Scruggs responding to an insult from a low-life bandit in the film The Ballad of Buster Scruggs [https://youtu.be/g_XLQDeYqpE?t=49]
“Fashion is but a fickle sort of convention. We cannot be expected to admire a slave of convention for being unconventional.”
G.K. Chesterton in Illustrated London News July 23, 1921, quoted in “Chesterton for Today” in Gilbert The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 25 #6 (July/August 2022)
“All that can be said is that when man doesn’t make trouble for himself, nature makes it for him.”
Link Byfield in The Report Jan. 3, 2000 [on the general subject of it not being possible to predict what trouble would next come along].
“The opinions which nobody can agree with are mostly in the books that nobody can read.”
G.K. Chesterton quoted without further attribution as header quotation on the book review section of Gilbert The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 25 #6 (July/August 2022)
In my latest Epoch Times column I say surprising allies in the fight against bloated government could be the large number of people who find working in it miserable despite the pay and perks.
“Do you really want a safe place? Is that what you want? You want to be so weak that you want to be protected from threat. What the hell kind of life is that? You’re a paralyzed rabbit in a hole. That’s no life for a human being. You should be confronting danger and the unknown and malevolence. And the reason for that, too, is – this is the weird paradox – and I believe this is the paradox, first of all, that was discovered in part by Buddha but also laid forth very clearly in Christianity, which is that: The solution to the problem of tragedy and malevolence is the willingness to face them.”
Jordan Peterson on Instagram (audio and CC which I transcribed) Sept. 24, 2022 [https://www.instagram.com/reel/Ci5ZIf1pm5s/?igshid=YWZlMWU5YjI%3D].
“‘Those who can, do,’ but the converse, ‘those who do, can,’ is no less true, for we learn by doing.”
Anthony De Jasay The State (expressly regarding the possibility that we couldn’t spontaneously cooperate any more because we’ve lived under governments for so long).
“‘I used to keep myself busy, the way working people do, so that I would not be alone.’... ‘Is it true that you purposely seek chaos in order to forget the painful questions [of existence]?’ ‘Yes, that’s right. When I reach a big city, I can’t despair over any answers to life’s big problems. I need to be fearless and resourceful. When I’m broke and hungry and night is falling fast I must find my way to safety.’”
A homeless person interviewing himself in Harper’s magazine September 2001