“I had rather be shut up in a very modest cottage with my books, my family and a few old friends, dining on simple bacon, and letting the world roll on as it liked, than to occupy the most splendid post, which any human power can give.”
“A great deal of democratic enthusiasm descends from the ideas of people like Rousseau, who believed in democracy because they thought mankind so wise and good that everyone deserved a share in the government. The danger of defending democracy on those grounds is that they’re not true. . . I find that they’re not true without looking further than myself. I don’t deserve a share in governing a hen-roost, much less a nation. The real reason for democracy is: Mankind is so fallen that no man can be trusted with unchecked power over his fellows. Aristotle said that some people were only fit to be slaves. I do not contradict him. But I reject slavery because I see no men fit to be masters.”
“Here’s how I see your weight—it is your smoke detector. And we’re all burning up the best part of our lives.” I’d never thought of it that way before, but it was a true aha moment. My weight was an indicator warning, a flashing light blaring my disconnection from the center of myself.”
“Ethically they had arrived at the conclusion that man’s supremacy over the lower animals meant not that the former should prey upon the latter, but that the higher should protect the lower,”
“Most people go through life by the line of least resistance in every circumstance where they can make a choice. They do not recognize that following the lines of least resistance makes all rivers, and some men, crooked!”
“I come in contact with mixed-up people, young men and women caught in the anguish of their own unpreparedness, intellectuals who have been seduced by false science, and rich men held in the grip of insecurity. They have no commitment to any goal. They lack an anchorage for their real self. And I long to take every one of them by the hand and lead them into the presence of the One who said, “Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” [Matthew 11:28 KJV].”
“When the examination was over, the doctor looked at his watch, and then Praskovya
Fyodorovna informed Ivan Ilyich that it must of course be as he liked, but she had sent today
for a celebrated doctor, and that he would examine him, and have a consultation with Mihail
Danilovich (that was the name of his regular doctor). 'Don't oppose it now, please. This I'm
doing entirely for my own sake,' she said ironically, meaning it to be understood that she was
doing it all for his sake, and was only saying this to give him no right to refuse her request. He
lay silent, knitting his brows. He felt that he was hemmed in by such a tangle of falsity that it
was hard to disentangle anything from it. Everything she did for him was entirely for her own
sake, and she told him she was doing for her own sake what she actually was doing for her
own sake as something so incredible that he would take it as meaning the opposite.”
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