Quotations

 

“That England, that was wont to conquer others / Hath made a shameful conquest of itself.” John of Gaunt in Richard II.

"If you always do the next thing that needs to be done, you will go most safely and sure-footedly along the path prescribed by your unconscious. Then it is naturally no help at all to speculate about how you ought to live. … you cannot know it, but quietly do the next and most necessary thing." Carl Jung.

"He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends.” - Oscar Wilde

"He is not only dull himself; he is the cause of dullness in others.” Dr. Johnson

"The educated elite’s strenuous preoccupation with food differs not only in degree but in kind from the traditional and contemporary non-elite economic activities of grocery shopping and eating out. As Charles Murray has painstakingly shown, in the 1960s the now hopelessly passé dinners of the middle class—beef or chicken and potato—mirrored those of the rich, who in their tastes and buying preferences, were different, as Hemingway would have it, only because they had more money.

"Currid-Halkett convincingly argues that the consumer preferences of today’s elite—be it the approved podcast, TED Talk, or magazine; goat tacos from the farmers market, a five-dollar cup of Intelligentsia Coffee, ceviche at the Oaxacan restaurant in the approved urban enclave, or tuition for the anointed school—are now the primary means by which members of the educated elite establish, reinforce, and signify their identities." Benjamin Schwarz, 'The New Elite’s Silly Virtue-Signaling Consumption', American Conservative, September 14, 2017

"I told Dr. Edith Eger I felt guilty about someone I had lost touch with and only recently reconnected with. She cut me off and told me she could give me a gift that would solve that guilt right now. “I give you a sentence,” she said, “One sentence — if I knew then what I know now, I would have done things differently.” That’s the end of that, she said. “Guilt is in the past, and the one thing you cannot change is the past.” Ryan Holiday, Stoic podcaster and internet star.