We--by whom I mean anyone over sixty--commit two offenses just bu existing. One is Lack of Velocity. We drive too slowly, walk to slowly, talk too slowly. The world will do business with dictators, perverts, and drugs barons of all stripes, but being slowed down it cannot abide. Our second offence is being Everyman's memento mori. The world can only get comfy in shiny-eyed denial if we are out of sight.
David Mitchell (author)Related topics
anyone business denial drive lack mean memento offence second sight talk velocity walk worldRelated quotes
That the outer man is a picture of the inner, and the face an expression and revelation of the whole character, is a presumption likely enough in itself, and therefore a safe one to go on borne out as it is by the fact that people are always anxious to see anyone who has made himself famous. Photography offers the most complete satisfaction of our curiosity.
Arthur Schopenhauer
No mockery in this world ever sounds to me so hollow as that of being told to cultivate happiness. What does such advice mean? Happiness is not a potato, to be planted in mould, and tilled with manure. Happiness is a glory shining far down upon us out of Heaven. She is a divine dew which the soul, on certain of its summer mornings, feels dropping upon it from the amaranth bloom and golden fruitage of Paradise.
Charlotte Brontë
If we listened to our intellect we'd never have a love affair. We'd never have a friendship. We'd never go in business because we'd be cynical: «It's gonna go wrong.» Or «She's going to hurt me.» Or, «I've had a couple of bad love affairs, so therefore ...» Well, that's nonsense. You're going to miss life. You've got to jump off the cliff all the time and build your wings on the way down.
Ray Bradbury
We cannot continue to have an excellence gap with the rest of the world and intend to remain the economic superpower and military superpower of the planet. That's just not going to happen, ... We're in a position where unless we take action, we'll end up being the France of the 21st century a lot of talk, but not a lot of strength behind it in terms of economic capability.
Mitt Romney
What I mean by living to one's-self is living in the world, as in it, not of it it is as if no one know there was such a person, and you wished no one to know it it is to be a silent spectator of the mighty scene of things, not an object of attention or curiosity in it to take a thoughtful, anxious interest in what is passing in the world, but not to feel the slightest inclination to make or meddle with it.
William Hazlitt
