A man is likely to mind his own business when it is worth minding. When it is not, he takes his mind off his own meaningless affairs by minding other people's business.This minding of other people's business expresses itself in gossip, snooping and meddling, and also in feverish interest in communal, national and racial affairs. In running away from ourselves we either fall on our neighbor's shoulder or fly at his throat.
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The wise man sometimes flees from society from fear of being
bored.
The wise man sometimes flees from society from fear of being
bored.
You think that a wall as solid as the earth separates civilization from barbarism. I tell you the division is read more
You think that a wall as solid as the earth separates civilization from barbarism. I tell you the division is a thread, a sheet of glass. A touch here, a push there, and you bring back the reign of Saturn.
In a consumer society there are inevitably two kinds of slaves:
the prisoners of addiction and the prisoners of read more
In a consumer society there are inevitably two kinds of slaves:
the prisoners of addiction and the prisoners of envy.
Scientists tell us that the fastest animal on earth, with a top speed of 120 ft/sec, is a cow that read more
Scientists tell us that the fastest animal on earth, with a top speed of 120 ft/sec, is a cow that has been dropped out of a helicopter.
Do not waste your time on Social Questions. What is the matter with the poor is Poverty; what is the read more
Do not waste your time on Social Questions. What is the matter with the poor is Poverty; what is the matter with the rich is Uselessness.
Our understanding of the world is achieved more effectively by conceptual improvements than by discovery of new facts...
Our understanding of the world is achieved more effectively by conceptual improvements than by discovery of new facts...
The world always makes the assumption that the exposure of an error is identical with the discovery of truth--that the read more
The world always makes the assumption that the exposure of an error is identical with the discovery of truth--that the error and truth are simply opposite. They are nothing of the sort. What the world turns to, when it is cured on one error, is usually simply another error, and maybe one worse than the first one.
The anointed don't like to talk about painful trade-offs. They like to talk about happy "solutions" that get rid of read more
The anointed don't like to talk about painful trade-offs. They like to talk about happy "solutions" that get rid of the whole problem- at least in their imagination.
Some tribes [of monkeys] have taken to washing potatoes in the river before eating them, others have not. Sometimes migrating read more
Some tribes [of monkeys] have taken to washing potatoes in the river before eating them, others have not. Sometimes migrating groups of potato-washers meet non-washers, and the two groups watch each other's strange behavior with apparent bewilderment. But unlike the inhabitants of Lilliput, who fought holy crusades over the question at which end to break the egg, the potato-washing monkeys do not go to war with the non-washers, because the poor creatures have no language which would enable them to declare washing a diving commandment and eating unwashed potatoes a deadly heresy.
