Some Quotes for April 2024 (#24)
Seneca, Ishiguro, Schopenhauer, Adam Mastroianni, Frank Herbert, Samuel Johnson, David Hume, Naomi Shihab Nye
Link = source I've actually read/endorse. No link = random, out-of-context snippet I was able to track down on the internet. (Some of these are advice—others I just enjoy the language or sentiment.)
The primary indicator, to my thinking, of a well-ordered mind is a man's ability to remain in one place and linger in his own company. –Seneca
From The Remains of the Day: The fact is, over the past few months, I have been responsible for a series of small errors in the carrying out of my duties. I should say that these errors have all been without exception quite trivial in themselves. Nevertheless, I think you will understand that to one not accustomed to committing such errors, this development was rather disturbing, and I did in fact begin to entertain all sorts of alarmist theories as to their cause. As so often occurs in these situations, I had become blind to the obvious. –Kazuo Ishiguro
Genius is to see what everyone has seen, and think what no one else has thought. –Arthur Schopenhauer (sort of)
From “12 baseless opinions about having good conversation” [paywall]: You can't expect someone to change their mind while you're looking at them. –
Good governance never depends upon laws, but upon the personal qualities of those who govern. The machinery of government is always subordinate to the will of those who administer that machinery. The most important element of government, therefore, is the method of choosing leaders. –Frank Herbert
A second marriage is a triumph of hope over experience. –Samuel Johnson
Though our thought seems to possess this unbounded liberty, we shall find, upon a nearer examination, that it is really confined within very narrow limits, and that all this creative power of the mind amounts to no more than the faculty of compounding, transposing, augmenting, or diminishing the materials afforded us by the senses and experience. –David Hume
Where there’s muck, there’s brass. –proverb
From “Supple Cord”:
When he fell asleep first and his end of the cord dropped to the floor, I missed him terribly, though I could hear his even breath and we had such long and separate lives ahead.
–Naomi Shihab Nye