Things I read over the last few days

So? If I die, then I die! The loss to the world won’t be great. Yes, and I’m fairly bored with myself already. I am like a man who is yawning at a ball, whose reason for not going home to bed is only that his carriage hasn’t arrived yet. But the carriage is ready . . . farewell!
I run through the memory of my past in its entirety and can’t help asking myself: Why have I lived? For what purpose was I born? . . .
There probably was one once, and I probably did have a lofty calling, because I feel a boundless strength in my soul . . .
But I didn’t divine this calling. I was carried away with the baits of passion, empty and unrewarding. I came out of their crucible as hard and cold as iron, but I had lost forever the ardor for noble aspirations, the best flower of life.

Lermontov

In life, you have to rely on the past and that's called history.


Donald Trump [reported in the Economist this week] 

Men who are unhappy, like men who sleep badly, are always proud of the fact.

Bertrand Russell - is this true?

Truth is a shining goddess, always veiled, never wholly approachable, but worthy of all the devotion of which the human spirit is capable.

Bertrand Russell - I hope we all agree on that.

Most powerful is he who has himself in his own power.

Seneca

It's odd how they name storms, but they don't name calms. There's a gentle breeze this morning. I think I'll call him Doug.

Dorothy Williams. My mother was outraged when I told her that they had stopped giving hurricanes only girls' names. I am too, even though I think it happened in 1978.

Do not marry a man unless you would be proud to have a son exactly like him.

Elissa Philips

Listen carefully to how a person speaks about other people to you.This is how they will speak about you to other people!

Elissa Philips

I look forward to the day when the Westminster Parliament is just a Council Chamber in Europe.

Kenneth Clarke, British Chancellor of the Exchequer (equivalent of Minister of Finance), in the International Currency Review, Vol. 23, No. 4, Autumn 1996. This is why Kenneth Clarke wants Great Britain to remain in the European Union

To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.

Oscar Wilde