“Nothing, to my way of thinking, is better proof of a well-ordered mind than a man’s ability to stop just where he is and pass some time in his own company.” — Seneca, Letters From a Stoic
Quotations
Reflections
Aphorisms of German physicist Georg Lichtenberg (1742-1799):
- “Passionate ambition and suspicion I have invariably found to go together.”
- “It is in most cases more difficult to make intelligent people believe that you are what you are not, than really to become what you would appear to be.”
- “True, unaffected distrust of human power in general is the surest sign of mental ability.”
- “I am convinced that we not only love ourselves in others, but hate ourselves in others too.”
- “Where moderation is a fault indifference is a crime.”
- “I suppose there never was a man of any great mark who was not slandered; or hardly any blackguard who never directed a slander against some man of merit.”
- “Mankind loves company, even if it is no more than that of a burning candle.”
- “It is a fact that there are numbers of people who read merely that they need not think.”
- “With most people unbelief in one thing is founded upon blind belief in another.”
- “What is very rare seldom remains long unexplained. What is inexplicable is usually no longer rare, and has perhaps never been so.”
- “The commonest opinions and the things that everybody takes for granted often the most deserve examination.”
- “That in advancing years we should grow incapable of learning has some connection with age’s intolerance of being ordered about, and a very close connection, too.”
- “I have looked through the list of illnesses, and did not find cares or sad thoughts mentioned among them. That is a mistake, surely.”
- “Saints in stone have done more in the world than living ones.”
“Has anyone, I wonder, ever dreamt of odours, without an external cause to give rise to the impression? — dreamt, for instance, of the smell of roses, when there was no rose or rosewater in the vicinity. With music this is certainly the case, and with light too; but feelings of pain in a dream usually have some external cause. As regards odours I am uncertain.”
Constraint
Art is limitation; the essence of every picture is the frame. If you draw a giraffe, you must draw him with a long neck. If, in your bold creative way, you hold yourself free to draw a giraffe with a short neck, you will really find that you are not free to draw a giraffe.
— G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy, 1908
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“It has been said that love robs those who have it of their wit, and gives it to those who have none.” — Diderot
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“The liar’s punishment is not in the least that he is not believed, but that he cannot believe anyone else.” — George Bernard Shaw
Elevated Thoughts
The joists in the tower in which Montaigne wrote his Essays are inscribed with his favorite quotations from Greek and Latin authors, many of which appear in his writings: “It is not so much things that torment man, as the opinions he has of things.” “Every reasoning has its contrary.” “Wind swells bladders, opinion swells men.”
He wrote, “The room pleases me because it is somewhat difficult of access, and retired, as much on account of the utility of the exercise, as because I there avoid the crowd. Here is my seat, my place, my rest. I try to make it purely my own, and to free this single corner from conjugal, filial, and civil community.”
The numbers in the diagram below correspond to this table in the German Wikipedia. English translations are here.
In large Latin letters on the central rafter are the words “I DO NOT UNDERSTAND. I PAUSE. I EXAMINE.”
Adages
Aphorisms from Norman Macdonald’s Maxims and Moral Reflections, 1827:
- By speaking contemptibly of our enemies, we disgrace our own hostility.
- We would be successful in most enterprises of life, were we to take that advice to ourselves which we give to others in similar circumstances.
- Severity of punishment deters minor crimes, but renders greater ones more certain and determined.
- Pride, like love, is sure to discover itself; because it can only derive value from the success with which it affects others.
- Were there no fools there would be no flatterers.
- The less we know of ourselves, the worse qualified we are to judge correctly of others.
- No end can be honorable that is dishonorably obtained.
- The better a man is known to himself, the more easily he is understood by others.
- There are two sorts of people that are never contented: they that do not know what they desire, and they that attempt impossibilities.
- The failure of many designs is owing to a confidence of success.
- A sure way, sometimes, to expose our virtue, is to endeavor to conceal it.
- A man is more deserving of success, that claims not adulation as his first conquest.
- We advise others better than ourselves.
- Most men have two principles, one practical, another professional.
- In cunning, our pride oftener dreads disappointment than our interest.
“Most men know how to take offence; but few know how to forgive — pride is always impatient; magnanimity, tolerant and pacific.”
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“The discovery of a new dish does more for human happiness than the discovery of a new star.” — Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin
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“We have got to learn to think scientifically, not only about inanimate things, but about ourselves and one another. It is possible to do this.” — J.B.S. Haldane
“Nothing has such power to broaden the mind as the ability to investigate systematically and truly all that comes under thy observation in life.” — Marcus Aurelius
Gatherings
“I like large parties. They’re so intimate. At small parties there isn’t any privacy.” — Jordan Baker in The Great Gatsby
“At any gathering I always feel as though I am the youngest person in the room.” — W.H. Auden
“The difference between what is commonly called ordinary company and good company, is only hearing the same things said in a little room or in a large saloon, at small tables or at great tables, before two candles or twenty sconces.” — Pope, Thoughts on Various Subjects, 1727