Ramblings of a Retired Mind

 “In spite of illness, in spite even of the archenemy sorrow, one can remain alive long past the usual date of disintegration if one is unafraid of change, insatiable in intellectual curiosity, interested in big things, and happy in small ways.” Edith Wharton

  “We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery, we need humanity; more than cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost.” Charlie Chaplin

  “The majority is never right. Never, I tell you! That’s one of these lies in society that no free and intelligent man can help rebelling against. Who are the people that make up the biggest proportion of the population—the intelligent ones or the fools?” Henrik Ibsen

  “Narcissistic personality disorder is named for Narcissus, from Greek mythology, who fell in love with his own reflection. Freud used the term to describe persons who were self-absorbed, and psychoanalysts have focused on the narcissist’s need to bolster his or her self-esteem through grandiose fantasy, exaggerated ambition, exhibitionism, and feelings of entitlement.” Dr. Donald W. Black

  “Don’t ask for guarantees. And don’t look to be saved in any one thing, person, machine, or library. Do your own bit of saving, and if you drown, at least die knowing you were heading for shore.” Ray Bradbury

  Ramblings of a Retired Mind You are wrong, I am right, even if I am wrong   Yesterday, I was minding my own business in the right lane when a car veered in front of me from the left—zero turn signal. The urge to honk or extend a specific finger was overwhelming. Instead, I chose peace, breathed deep, and turned up the radio. Moments later, a massive pickup truck came flying down the left lane. Before I could even think, where’s a cop when you need one? The truck cut hard into the right lane, cutting off my original offender. Clearly, turn signals are a lost art form. The best part? The first driver, the one who had just cut me off, was absolutely furious. He lay on his horn, completely blind to the irony. It perfectly captures the new normal: "Rules for thee, but not for me." We see this hypocritical projection in politics every day, where everyone accuses the opposition of the exact dastardly things they are doing themselves. I don't know when this became...

  “Wherever your life ends, it is all there. The utility of living consists not in the length of days, but in the use of time; a man may have lived long, and yet lived but a little.” Michel de Montaigne

​ “A proud man is always looking down on things and people; and, of course, as long as you are looking down, you cannot see something that is above you.” C. S. Lewis

​ “Everything that needs to be said has already been said. But since no one was listening, everything must be said again.” André Gide 

  "I believe that what we become depends on what our fathers teach us at odd moments, when they aren't trying to teach us. We are formed by little scraps of wisdom." Umberto Eco, from Foucault's Pendulum

  “There is no belief, however foolish, that will not gather its faithful adherents who will defend it to the death.” Isaac Asimov

​ We will gradually become indifferent to what goes on in the minds of other people when we acquire a knowledge of the superficial nature of their thoughts, the narrowness of their views and of the number of their errors. Whoever attaches a lot of value to the opinions of others pays them too much honor.”   Arthur Schopenhauer

  “War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.” Smedley Butler

  “I find war detestable but those who praise it without participating in it even more so.” Romain Rolland

  “If there is a sin against life, it consists perhaps not so much in despairing of life as in hoping for another life and in eluding the implacable grandeur of this life.”   Albert Camus

 “Always expecting this and expecting that. May I recommend serenity to you? A life that is burdened with expectations is a heavy life. Its fruit is sorrow and disappointment. Learn to be one with the joy of the moment.” Douglas Adams

  “It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.” Ralph Waldo Emerson

  “Always expecting this and expecting that. May I recommend serenity to you? A life that is burdened with expectations is a heavy life. Its fruit is sorrow and disappointment. Learn to be one with the joy of the moment.” Douglas Adams