Freud observed that people who have much in common can still fight bitterly because they grow overly sensitive to the disagreements remaining between them. He called this the “narcissism of small differences”: “It is precisely the minor differences in people who are otherwise alike that form the basis of feelings of hostility between them.”

In Gulliver’s Travels, 11,000 people die in a war between the Big-endians, who break their eggs at the big end, and the Little-endians, who break them at the little end. A Lilliputian admiral attacks Gulliver because “he had good reasons to think you were a Big-endian in your heart; and, as treason begins in the heart, before it appears in overt acts, so he accused you as a traitor on that account, and therefore insisted you should be put to death.”

For a 1752 essay, Samuel Johnson compiled these notes on how a man’s outlook changes as he grows older:

Hope predom. in youth. Mind not willingly indulges unpleasing thoughts. The world lies all enameld before him, as a distant prospect sun-gilt — inequalities only found by coming to it. Love is to be all joy — children excellent — Fame to be constant — caresses of the great — applauses of the learned — smiles of Beauty.

Fear of disgrace — Bashfulness — Finds things of less importance. Miscarriages forgot like excellencies; — if remembered, of no import. Danger of sinking into negligence of reputation. Lest the fear of disgrace destroy activity.

Confidence in himself. Long tract of life before him. — No thought of sickness. — Embarrasment of affairs. — Distraction of family. — Publick calamities. — No sense of the prevalence of bad habits. — Negligent of time — ready to undertake — careless to pursue — all changed by time.

Confident of others — unsuspecting as unexperienced — imagining himself secure against neglect, never imagines they will venture to treat him ill. Ready to trust; expecting to be trusted. Convinced by time of the selfishness, the meanness, the cowardice, the treachery of men.

“Such is the condition of life, that something is always wanting to happiness,” Johnson wrote in the finished essay. “In youth, we have warm hopes, which are soon blasted by rashness and negligence, and great designs, which are defeated by inexperience. In age, we have knowledge and prudence without spirit to exert, or motives to prompt them; we are able to plan schemes and regulate measures, but have not time remaining to bring them to completion.”

In 2015, Canadian politician Sheldon Bergson changed his name to Above Znoneofthe, so that it would appear on electoral ballots as “Znoneofthe, Above.” (The Z, which is silent, ensures that the name will appear last in a list of candidates.)

He ran in an Ontario provincial by-election the following year, winning 0.43 percent of the vote, and has participated in several races since. Amazingly, he’s not the first person to try this.

(Thanks, Alessia.)

In a certain street are three tailors. The first to set up shop hung out this sign — ‘Here is the best tailor in the town.’ The next put up — ‘Here is the best tailor in the world.’ The third simply had this — ‘Here is the best tailor in this street.’

— John Scott, The Puzzle King, 1899

“When asked by a disciple if there were one single word which could serve as a principle of conduct for life, Confucius replied, ‘Perhaps the word reciprocity will do. Never impose on others what you would not choose for yourself.'” — Analects

In Marriage and Morals (1929), Bertrand Russell mentions that, while “[c]ruelty is in theory a perfectly adequate ground for divorce, … it may be interpreted so as to become absurd”:

When the most eminent of all film stars was divorced by his wife for cruelty, one of the counts in the proof of cruelty was that he used to bring home friends who talked about Kant.

I haven’t been able to figure out who this is. Russell writes, “I hardly suppose that it was the intention of the California legislators to enable any woman to divorce her husband on the ground that he was sometimes guilty of intelligent conversation in her presence.”

05/11/2026 UPDATE: Russell was referring to the 1920 divorce of Mildred Harris from Charlie Chaplin. The two had married in 1918, when Chaplin was 29 and Harris was 16. In 2015, Silent Film Quarterly republished an interview with Harris: “He brought men home to dinner. But such men! Old, grave, and intellectual men! They were 50 years old or more. They talked of things I could not possibly understand. I was seventeen. What could I know of philosophy, or of Voltaire, or Rousseau, or Kant?” Thanks to everyone who wrote in about this.

I do not mean to be disrespectful, but the attempt of the lords to stop the progress of reform reminds me very forcibly of the great storm of Sidmouth, and of the conduct of the excellent Mrs. Partington on that occasion. In the winter of 1824, there set in a great flood upon that town; the tide rose to an incredible height; the waves rushed in upon the houses, and everything was threatened with destruction. In the midst of this sublime and terrible storm, Dame Partington, who lived upon the beach, was seen at the door of her house with mop and pattens, trundling her mop, squeezing out the sea-water, and vigorously pushing away the Atlantic Ocean. The Atlantic was roused. Mrs. Partington’s spirit was up; but I need not tell you that the contest was unequal. The Atlantic Ocean beat Mrs. Partington. She was excellent at a slop or a puddle, but she should not have meddled with a tempest. Gentlemen, be at your ease — be quiet and steady. You will beat Mrs. Partington.

— Sydney Smith on the Reform Bill, Taunton, Oct. 12, 1831