Quotes

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I am reading Rubicon by Tom Holland to prepare for an essay question for Roman History.

He gives a quote that I put in the blog last year from Caesar’s account of his campaigns in Gaul.

Human nature is universally imbued with a desire for liberty, and a hatred for servitude.

Of course the Gallic Wars was also a work of propaganda. Whether humans innately desire liberty is an interesting question in light of the time Caesar lived in. It is also a very relevant quote these days.

This one has been broadcast on the news headlines today:

A Co Kildare man who attacked a policewoman with an iron bar in Lisburn police station 18 months ago and blinded her in the eye has been jailed for seven years.

As oppose to blinding her in the ear, nose or leg. Surely it should have read ‘blinded her in one eye’?

It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it. Life is long enough, and a sufficiently generous amount has been given to use for the highest achievements if it were all well invested. But when it is wasted in heedless luxury and spent on no good activity, we are forced at last by death’s final constraint to realise that it has passed away before we knew it was passing.

Seneca, On the Shortness of Life. C 5BC - AD 65

In a way, if you are the imperial power you have to accept that people are going to hate you however you go about spreading your influence. One of the problems Americans have is this desire to be loved. Legitimacy isn’t necessarily based on affection. It’s based on credibility. And I think what we’re seeing in Iraq is just the latest in a series of tests of American resolve and credibility. It’s not the hatred one should worry about, it’s the contempt. The legitimacy that the United States will achieve if it makes a success of Iraq will outweigh the inevitable resentment. You need to be respected. And the United States has a long way to go before it attains that respect, most obviously in the Middle East.

First, remember that people may kill one another even more in the absence of empire—see sub-Saharan Africa. Second, if we don’t extend our civilization, an even worse empire may emerge—see the Cold War. It is the habitual fantasy of many Americans that if the U.S. would just stop intervening abroad everybody in the world would enact the lyrics of John Lennon’s “Imagine.” History suggests otherwise.

It’s [America] an empire that has all the functions of military empire, if you like. It has the capacity to project itself in terms of force over vast geographical distances. It’s an empire that is remarkably adept at spreading its culture globally. In that sense, it’s an empire with almost unrivaled military and cultural power. But when it comes to what might be called imperial governance, it is an empire which, precisely because it doesn’t recognize its own existence, consistently underperforms.

Look at advertising: its sole function is to make us feel that certain things are missing from our lives. So today it’s possible for someone to feel poor if they don’t have air-conditioning or a flat-screen TV in a way that they wouldn’t have fifty or even ten years ago. Our sense of what it is to be reasonably well-off keeps changing, keeps rising—even though all of us are much better off than people were hundreds of years ago. But no one compares themselves to someone who lived three-hundred years ago or to someone in sub-Saharan Africa. We take our points of reference from those around us: our friends, our family. These are the people who determine our feelings of success. Which is why Rousseau wrote that the best way to become rich is not by trying to make more money, but by separating yourself from anyone around you who has had the bad taste to become more successful than you. It’s a facetious point, but it’s also a serious one. Feelings of wealth are relative.

I also rather enjoy mocking the modern spirit of optimism. We’re often told that the best way to make someone feel good about their life is to tell them something cheerful. I’m more attracted to an alternative line, which is to argue that people are most cheered up by despairing thoughts about life. If you’re feeling a bit down, the last thing you want to read is a book telling you that everything will be well. You really should turn to Schopenhauer or Kirkegaard who will tell you that unhappiness is intrinsic to the human condition.

When you think of a productive economy you’re thinking of an anxious economy. You’re looking at many, many people who are afraid about hanging on to their places. You can either lead a simple life—the Jeffersonian ideal of the independent farmer with his simple log cabin. Or you can lead a city life. It’s your choice. I guess a Marxist would say that in the ideal future we would have a noble feudal community and high technology at the same time. But on the whole I think it’s perceived as a choice. Productivity and GNP are linked to the anxieties of many, many individual workers. An economy like that of France—a so-called “unproductive economy”—is in a way a more relaxed economy. Any given country will be successful at some things and unsuccessful at others. France may be somewhat unsuccessful economically, but it’s successful in its long lunch break. There’s that choice.

Human nature is universally imbued with a desire for liberty, and a hatred for servitude. Caesar, Gallic Wars.

When did I realize I was God? Well, I was praying and I suddenly realized that I was talking to myself.

Peter Barnes, The Ruling Class

It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.

Albert Einstein in Albert Einstein: The Human Side, edited by
Helen Dukas (Einstein’s secretary) and Banesh Hoffman

Believing is easier than thinking. Hence so many more believers than thinkers. Bruce Calvert

1. I wish to complain that my father hurt his ankle very badly when he put his foot in the hole in his back passage

2. The lavatory is blocked so will you send a man to look into it?

3. Our gutters are blocked. This has been caused by the boys next door throwing their balls on the roof.

4. This is to let you know there is a very bad smell coming from the man next door.

5. The toilet seat is cracked – where do I stand?

6. I am writing on behalf of my sink which is running away from the wall.

7. Please send plumber to burst in outside toilet.

8.I am still having trouble with smoke in my built-in drawer.

9. I request your permission to remove my drawers in my kitchen.

10. Our lavatory seat has broken in half and is now in three pieces.

11. Can you please tell me when our repairs are going to be done as my wife is about to become an expectant mother.

12. I want some repairs done to my gas cooker as it back-fired and burnt my knob.

13. The toilet is blocked and we cannot bath the children until it is cleared.

14. The person next door has a large erection in his back garden which is dangerous and unsightly.

15. Will you please send someone to mend our broken path. Yesterday my wife tripped and fell on it and she is now pregnant.

16. Our kitchen floor is very damp. We have two children and would like to have a third, so will you please send someone to do something about it.

17. Would you please repair our toilet. My son pulled the chain and the box fell on his head.

18. This is to let you know our lavatory seat is broken and we cannot get BBC 2.

19. I awoke this morning and found my water boiling.

20. Would you please send a man to repair my spout. I am an old age pensioner and need it straight away.

21. Will you please send a man to look at my water, it’s a funny colour and not fit to drink.

22. My carpet is not fit for human consumption. It got soaked and I didn’t send the form in sooner as I’ve been ill with bowel trouble.

It is not he that adorns but he that adores that makes divinity. The wise person would rather see others needing him than thanking him. To keep them on the threshold of hope is diplomatic, to trust their gratitude is boorish; hope has a good memory, gratitude a bad one. More is to be got from dependence than from courtesy. He that has satisfied his thirst turns his back on the well, and the orange once squeezed falls from the golden platter into the waste basket. When dependence disappears good behaviour goes with it, as well as respect. Let it be one of the chief lessons of experience to keep hope alive without entirely satisfying it, by preserving it to make oneself always needed, even by a patron on the throne. But do not carry silence to excess or you will go wrong, nor let another’s failing grow incurable for the sake of your own advantage.

These are the elements of greatness. Because they are immortal they bestow immortality. Each is as much as he knows, and the wise can do anything. A person without knowledge is in a world without light. Wisdom and strength are they eyes and hands. Knowledge without courage is sterile.

Admiration of their novelty heightens the value of your achievements. It is both useless and insipid to play with your cards on the table. If you do not declare yourself immediately, you arouse expectation, especially when the importance of your position makes you the object of general attention. Mix a little mystery with everything, and the very mystery arouses veneration. And when you explain, do not be too explicit, just as you do not expose your inmost thoughts in ordinary conversation. Cautious silence is the sacred sanctuary of worldly wisdom. A resolution declared is never highly thought of—it only leaves room for criticism. And if it happens to fail, you are doubly unfortunate. Besides, you imitate the divine way when you inspire people to wonder and watch.

These are the two poles of our capacity; one without the other is but halfway to happiness. Intellect is not enough, character is also needed. On the other hand, it is the fool’s misfortune to fail in obtaining the position, employment, neighbourhood, and circle of friends of his choice.

This is especially true of the art of making one’s way in the world. There is a more required nowadays to make a single wise person than formerly to make the Seven Sages of ancient Greece, and more is needed nowadays to deal with a single person than was required with a whole people in former times.

You know we armed Iraq. I wondered about that too, you know during the Persian Gulf war… those intelligence reports would come out: “Iraq: incredible weapons - incredible weapons.” How do you know that? “Uh, well… We looked at the receipts Haar.” “Ah but as soon as that cheque clears, we’re going in.” “What time’s the bank open? 8? We’re going in at 9.” “We’re going in for God and country and democracy and here’s a foetus and he’s a Hitler. Whatever you fucking need, let’s go. Get motivated behind this, let’s go!” Bill Hicks

You know, and the amazing thing, obviously, the disparity and the casualties. Iraq - one hundred and fifty thousand casualties, USA - seventy-nine. Iraq - one hundred and fifty thousand, USA - seventy-nine. Does that mean that if we had sent over eighty guys, we still would have won that fucking thing, or what? Bill Hicks