— Cato, in A Treasury of the Familiar, Ralph L. Woods, p. 681.
….It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, peace, peace — but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it the gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!
March 23, 1775
— Patrick Henry, from the end of a speech, in Ibid., p. 685.
A politician thinks of the next election; a statesman, of the next generation.
— James Freeman Clarke, in Ibid., p. 688.
“Fay que vouldrass!”
(“Do what you want!”)
— Rabelais, in Warm Logic: The Art of the Intuitive Lifestyle, Louis Wynne/Carolyn Klintworth, p. 13.
“Nothing worth knowing can be understood with the mind.”
— Woody Allen, in Ibid., p. 13.
“Seek not to understand what is too difficult for you,
search not for what is hidden from you.
Be not over-occupied with what is beyond you,
for you have been shown more than you can understand.”
— Apochrypha (Ben-Sira), in Ibid., p. 13.
When actions flow from intuitive sources, rather than from decisions and thinking, these actions are actually more responsible, not less. Intuitive actions are “responsible” to their supporting contingencies; rule-regulated acts are “responsible” to the person or persons who influenced your thinking and concocted those rules.
— Louis Wynne/Carolyn Klintworth, Warm Logic: The Art of the Intuitive Lifestyle, p. 24.
….All of which is to say, not only is there no such thing as a mistake, but also you can change your past. You cannot, of course, change what has happened, but you can change the importance of any event or action in your past simply by what you do in the present. You can make it very important, or you can make it irrelevant. Perhaps this is what Henry Ford meant when he said, “All history is bunk!”
What about the much-recommended “taking the long view” of things? By all means you are most likely to benefit from taking the long view — but understand that we mean by this the long view back through the past, not into the future. When someone is “short-sighted,” he or she is failing to consider not what the future may bring, but what has happened in the past. Such a long view of the past will protect you, as much as it is possible to be protected in this uncertain world, from the undesirable and unhealthy long-term consequences of actions which in the short term may be pleasurable. The more you are sensitive to the long-term consequences in your and your acquaintances’ pasts, as they are now making themselves felt, of smoking, poor diet, lack of exercise, drug use, sexual promiscuity, or treating people in general with contempt or suspicion, the more protected you will be as you act in the present.
When you live in the present, you become immediately free of the stress brought on by self-recriminations over the past, since you have never made a mistake. And you are immediately free of the stress brought on by worries over the future, worries about unfinished business, unsettled conflicts, unattained goals, and unfulfilled promises to yourself and to others.
— Louis Wynne/Carolyn Klintworth, in Ibid., pp. 64-65.
“Man is not troubled by events, but by the meaning he gives to them.”
— Epictetus, in Ibid., p. 101.
“It’s not what folks know that’s the problem; it’s what they know that ain’t so.”
— Josh Billings, in Ibid., p. 101.
“Our intention is to affirm life, not to bring order out of chaos nor to suggest improvements to creation, but simply to wake up to the very life we’re living, which is so excellent once one gets one’s mind and one’s desires out of the way and lets it act of its own accord.”
— John Cage, in Ibid., p.125.
“Some things have to be believed to be seen.”
— Ralph Hodgson, in Ibid., p. 125.
“It does not matter what has been made of us; what matters is what we ourselves make of what has been made of us.”
— Jan Kott, in Ibid., p. 125.
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