Advice from me, from people a lot smarter from me, and from people who are just very keen on offering advice.
Personal (lack of) insights
Life's a bitch. Nearly all the time. It annoys. It terrifies. It frustrates. It bores. And then it gets interesting enough to lure you into a false sense of security before starting this whole routine all over again.
Death is worse. No joking matter.
Money is an annoyingly necessary Pain in the Neck. Chances are, you'll never
have as much of it as you need; if you're really lucky, you'll have much more
than you actually need, you'll never know what you should really spend it
on, it'll mostly be spent on things you never intended it to be spent on, and everyone else will be wishing that you'd spend it on them.
Everyone has their own opinions about the most important things in life.
This is my list of things I think are absolutely irreplaceable:
The first is the love of your family (including pets).
The second is the love of your friends (this includes the people you say
hello to in passing even though you don't know their names). You may sometimes
feel you can do without your friends, but you're likely to get hurt that
way.
The third is the love of a beautiful woman/man (who you include here is up
to your hormones, which is really none of my business).
Love is a really
wonderful, wonderful thing that brings a little ray of light into the sometimes
seemingly unremitting dreariness
of reality. Of course, love is blind to even the most hopelessly insurmountable
obstacles (including the possibility that the person you're in love with might
think that being eaten alive by piranha fish would be only slightly less
desirable than spending an evening with you) and arguably you could be infinitely
better off without her/him. You
won't care about that, though, because you'll be in love; later on I would dearly hope you don't ever need to
contemplate the possibility and, let's face it, if our parents had taken that
sort
of negative attitude, we wouldn't be here. On the other hand, as every James Bond fan
knows, little rays of light aren't always innocuous, so if you're prone to being
romantically reckless, you might prefer to remember
what
My Fair Lady's Professor Henry Higgins had to say on the subject of letting a woman into your life. Just a tad sexist of course, but when there are about a million and one songs about how wonderful Miss Such-and-Such is, I think it's only fair to acknowledge an opposing viewpoint.
The fourth, really crucial ingredient is a really good cup of tea.
There is absolutely no question in my view that this an essential in life. I
don't wish to cast aspersions on the coffee bean, and I can understand a preference for alcoholic drinks, but in my view the tea leaf is king.
In the interests of everyone who has made this extraordinary drink possible, I would strongly urge you to support
the campaign for fair
trade. Read about the difference it makes
here. "If you are cold, tea will warm you; if you are too heated, it will cool you; if you are depressed, it will cheer you; if you are excited, it will calm you."--William Gladstone
Others (in no particular order) include rock music, poetry, fantasy, dance, idealism, peaceful coexistence, beauty, learning inspirational things, self-discovery, strawberries, and an efficient fan on a hot day. And television. And football (soccer). And of course eating, breathing and all the other basic essentials they tell you about in biology textbooks.
For centuries, people have been asking the question "What is the meaning of life?" Well, that's a toughie, and answering it falls several light years outside the remit of a little website like this. But it seems to me that people are like sets of programs that write more programs that write more programs that write more programs. Maybe the universe is like a cosmic software company, something like Microsoft. According to what some people say, there might even be other universes out there, as it were the Apple Corp. or Sun Microsystems of a multiverse of universes. Or perhaps I've just been reading too many Dilbert cartoons.
No, life is obviously like a pot of tea. In some fundamental but as yet unidentified respect.
Philosophical musings:
A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
--Confucius
If it is not right do not do it; if it is not true do not say it.
--Marcus Aurelius
Neither fire nor wind, birth nor death can erase our good deeds
--Buddha
Human nature is good, just as water seeks low ground. There is no man who is not good, just as there is no water that does not flow downward.
--Mencius
Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in
all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can,
as long as ever you can.
--John Wesley
You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor, and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you in order that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven.
--Jesus Christ
A good action and a bad action are not the same. Repel the bad with something better and, if there is enmity between you and someone else, he will be like a bosom friend.
--The Koran (41:34)
I may disagree with what you have to say, but I shall defend, to the death, your right to say it.
--Voltaire
Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they
arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.
--Anais Nin
To eat bread without hope is still slowly to starve to death.
--Pearl S. Buck
Life has taught us that love does not consist in gazing at each other but in
looking outward together in the same direction.
--Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Life Shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage.
--Anais Nin
Each has his past shut in him like the leaves of a book known to him by heart
and his friends can only read the title.
--Virginia Woolf
Ourself behind ourself, concealed
Should startle most
Assassin hid in our Apartment
Be Horror’s least.
--Emily Dickinson
Political Perspectives
The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first
and only object of good government.
--Thomas Jefferson
He who rules by moral force is like the pole star, which remains in place while all the lesser stars do homage to it. --Confucius
He who wishes to be obeyed must know how to command.
--Niccolo Machiavelli
The first method for estimating the intelligence of a ruler is to look at the men he has around him.
--Niccolo Machiavelli
States are not moral agents, people are, and can impose moral standards on
powerful institutions.
--Noam Chomsky
"When spider webs unite, they can halt even a lion."
--Old African proverb
Property is the right of possession; at the same time it is the right of exclusion. Property is the reward of labor; and at the same time the negation of
labor. Property is the immediate product of society; and the dissolution of society. Property is an institution of justice; and PROPERTY IS ROBBERY.
--Charles A. Dana's commentary on the philosophy of Proudhon ("Proudhon and his 'Bank of the People'")
Man made one grave mistake: in answer to vaguely reformist and humanitarian agitation he admitted women to politics and the professions. The conservatives who saw this as the undermining of our civilization and the end of the state and marriage were right after all; it is time for the demolition to begin.
--Germaine Greer
I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is; I only
know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that
differentiate me from a doormat.
-- Rebecca West
Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is
but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one; for when we
suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries by a government, which we might
expect in a country without government, our calamities is heightened by
reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer.
--Thomas Paine
Dissent, rebellion, and all-around hell-raising remain the true duty of
patriots.
--Barbara Ehrenreich
Though bitter, good medicine cures illness. Though it may hurt, loyal criticism will have beneficial effects.
- Sima Qian
(145-86 B.C.), Grand Historian of the Han Dynasty
Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth.
--Martin Luther King Jr.
I believe that it is impossible to end hatred with hatred.
-- Mahatma Gandhi
Liberalism is trust of the people tempered by prudence. Conservatism is distrust of the people tempered by fear.
-- W.Gladstone
A politician is a person with whose politics you don't agree; if you agree with him he's a statesman.
-- David Lloyd George
The world is weary of statesmen whom democracy has degraded into politicians.
--Benjamin Disraeli.
The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of
Conservatives is to prevent mistakes from being corrected.
-- G. K. Chesterton
Democracy means government by discussion, but it is only effective if you can stop people talking.
--Clement Attlee
I have never found, in a long experience of politics, that criticism is ever inhibited by ignorance.
--Harold Macmillan
Talk doesn't cook rice.
--Chinese proverb
Whosoever desires constant success must change his conduct with the times.
-- Niccolo Machiavelli
He who rejects change is the architect of decay. The only human institution which rejects progress is the cemetery.
-- Harold Wilson
Black cat or white cat, it's a good cat that catches the mice.
-- Deng Xiaoping
Man is not the creature of circumstances, circumstances are the creatures of men. We are free agents, and man is more powerful than matter.
-- Benjamin Disraeli
We look forward to the time when the Power of Love will replace the Love of Power. Then will our world know the blessings of peace.
--William Gladstone
Do not condemn the judgment of another because it differs from your own. You may both be wrong.
--Dandemis
The sources for these quotes (all sites that I thoroughly
recommend) are listed here if you want them. Another excellent source of thought-provoking quotations is Amit Varma's Nuggets and Aphorisms blog.
The above quotes are reproduced above purely because I admire, sympathise with or am intrigued by the sentiments expressed. Any misquotes, misrepresentations or breaches of copyright are purely unintentional, and I will try to rectify any that are brought to my attention.
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