It is the habit of mankind to entrust to careless hope what they long for, and to use sovereign reason to thrust aside what they do not desire.
Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, Book IV 4.98
Photo by Jacek Smoter on Unsplash
Tag: Quotations
Anger is a hot coal you hold in your hand while waiting to throw it at somebody.
Attributed to Buddha.
Photo by Elimende Inagella on Unsplash
In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread.
Genesis 3:19, King James Bible
I’m not prone to quoting the bible, but isn’t this exactly the life of a sovereign professional? No-one’s saying sweat needs to be a bad thing, it’s the consequence of hard work. In other versions, the passage becomes, “By the sweat of your brow…” and, interestingly, it has given rise to the “sweat of the brow” copyright doctrine by which a creator gains rights “through simple diligence during the creation of a work.”
Photo by Hans Reniers on Unsplash
The goal of life is to make your heartbeat match the beat of the universe, to match your nature with Nature.
Joseph Campbell (1904 – 1987), quoted in Reflections on the Art of Living: A Joseph Campbell Companion
Photo by Bailey Zindel on Unsplash
Treat with respect the power you have to form an opinion. By it alone can the helmsman within you avoid forming opinions that are at variance with nature and with the constitution of a reasonable being.
Marcus Aurelius (AD 120 – 180), Meditations (3.9)
Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.
William Morris (1834 – 1896), Hopes and Fears for Art: Five Lectures Delivered in Birmingham. London and Nottingham, 1878-1881
Photo: Andrew Munro
Time is a river, the resistless flow of all created things. One thing no sooner comes in sight than it is hurried past and another is borne along, only to be swept away in its turn.
Marcus Aurelius (AD 120 – 180), Meditations (4.43)
Photo by Tim Peterson on Unsplash
Everything is but what your opinion makes it; and that opinion lies within yourself. Renounce it when you will, and at once you have rounded the foreland and all is calm; a tranquil sea, a tideless haven.
Marcus Aurelius (AD 120 – 180), Meditations (12.22)
Photo by Raimond Klavins on Unsplash
To Nature, whence all things come and whither all return, the cry of the humble and well-instructed heart is, ‘Give as thou wilt, take back as thou wilt;’ yet uttered with no heroics, but in pure obedience and goodwill.
Marcus Aurelius (AD 120 – 180), Meditations (10.14)
Photo by Layne Lawson on Unsplash
Political language – and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists – is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.”
George Orwell (1903 – 1950), Politics and the English Language