Jeremiah 6:16
“Much time is lost in regretting the time which had been lost before."
Dr. Johnson
"You will never be able to experience everything. So, please, do poetical justice to your soul and simply experience yourself."
Albert Camus, Notebooks, 1935-1951
"We cannot change anything until we accept it. Condemnation does not liberate, it oppresses."
Carl Jung
Carl Jung
American comedienne Chelsea Handler on being an unmarried woman of 47 (old maid has been a forbidden expression of for 30 years).
"Twenty-two acknowledged concubines, and a library of sixty-two thousand volumes, attested the variety of his inclinations; and from the productions which he left behind him, it appears that the former as well as the latter were designed for use rather than for ostentation."
Gibbon on the Emperor Gordian II. All these Emperors are familiar to me from reading catalogues of coins when I was eight or nine. I learnt from Gibbon that he died in battle after reigning for 3 weeks. Less time than Liz Truss.
I like using the term old maid to also describe men. I know quite a few.
ReplyDeleteFinding that the nowadays rather backhand insult of “ Spinster” had it’s genesis in women who were financially independent of men gave me more insight into the dynamic than any other fact
ReplyDeleteSpinsters are excellent but spinsterish is not a compliment (usually used to describe men) while bachelors for me conjures up Victorians dining on the club table in their London club.
ReplyDelete