1Quote1Day - NYE Resolution

  “If a man is not rising upward to become an angel, depend upon it, he is sinking downwards to become a devil.” - Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834). 30 August 1833, Table Talk, 1835 - We are always changing. It is not in the nature of a human being to always stay the same, to never grow or fade. We live and we die, we fall and rise, thrive and fail, over and over again, all our days. It is not necessarily the case that we shall rise to become an angel, or fall to become a devil, for people like that are exceedingly rare, but rather that we constantly tend to move along those paths. Some people like to say that they try to be a little better today than yesterday, each day, and most of us never quite manage that. What we do instead is, be better in one moment, and worse in a different moment, depending on our concentration and powers. We do not always land where we aim, and neither do we always aim where we think we do - the inclinations of our own lives are often a mystery to us...

  “Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly.” - G.K. Chesterson (1874-1936), Orthodoxy, 7, 1909 To fly, to flit about unhindered by gravity, is to be able to reach tall places easily, and to travel from place to place quickly. Thus, I imagine this quote to mean that the ability to take yourself lightly, or in other words the ability to laugh at yourself, is a necessary component in our ability to rapidly adjust our position. Someone who cannot laugh at himself is in a fragile state, unlikely to change with the times. Laughter is one way in which we can deal with our stress, so that instead of being crushed by our failures or responsibilities, we can instead look at them side-long to see the absurdities in them, or we can pass over out worries and cast them aside, treating them as if they were nothing, so that by that method of pretending, we can make them, if not nothing, at least less than they are.  To fly, flit, flee - are these really so different from one a...

  “I have the same goal I’ve had ever since I was a girl. I want to rule the world.” - Madonna (1959- ). In “The Ten Who Count the Most,” People, 27 July 1992 Don’t we all dream of ruling the world at some point in our lives? I think that most of us give up on this dream eventually, accepting our lot in life and the rules that we have to follow. For me, there appears to be reasons to keep this quote in mind, and to still attempt to rule the world. One of those reasons is that by aiming to rule the world, we are able to take a long view of that same world. We don’t have to accept how the world is, or that the world should be the way it is. We are not the peasants or merchants of the world - we are its rightful king, merely princes in waiting. It is for us to judge all that we see, to come to a viewpoint and form a belief about all that works or does not work, all that is right and wrong, and all that is important or unimportant. If we are to rule the world one day, then we are to ...

  “Ambition is not a reprehensible quality, nor are ambitious men to be censured, if they seek glory through honorable and honest means. In fact, it is they who produce great and excellent works. Those who lack this passion are cold spirits, inclined toward laziness than activity. But ambition is pernicious and detestable when it has as its sole end power. - Francesco Guicciardini (1483-1540). Remembrances, C.32, 1530, tr. Mario Domandi, 1965 What we fear is ambition that turns on us. We are glad and happy to see someone rise, but that feeling turns into a sense of horror once we see and understand that they have forgotten us, or that they have tricked us, in their lust for power. The ambition to obtain power is a horrible ambition, because it has no reason for its aim, except for the aim itself, no reason for power but power. This can never be fed, never be completed. More dangerously still, power is often only known to exist in the exercise of power. It is not enough simply to ...

“Do you not think I have just cause to weep, when I consider that Alexander at my age had conquered so many nations, and I have all this time done nothing that is memorable?” - Julius Caesar (100-44 B.C.) Remark to his friends who, during a military campaign in Spain, were surprised to see him burst into tears after reading about Alexander's exploits. In Plutarch (A.D. 46?-119?), “Caesar”, Parallel Lives, Dryden edition, 1693 We have a tendency to always be comparing ourselves to others. We see or hear of someone more successful than us, younger than us, happier than us, and we think of how sad our life is. If we are satisfied with our life and what we have achieved, then we can still look at what someone else has achieved and think that we could have done even better. If we are not satisfied with what we have achieved in life than our reaction is much worse – we feel sick to our stomach and the degree to which we have been a failure. Someone else telling us that it is ok, that w...

  Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp,  Or what's a Heaven for? - Robert Browning (1812-1889). "Andrea del Santo," 1. 97, Men and Women, 1855 What happens once you achieve a dream of yours? You rest on your laurels for a while, but sooner or later, you prepare a new goal. As human beings, we are always changing, always expanding into the future. Our 'reach' in this world is what we can achieve, and our 'grasp' is what we will achieve. This quote simply says that we are not perfect, and that we cannot reach perfection. The heaven he speaks of may as well be the heaven of our own mind, our own ideals. It is not just something we picture in our minds - it is also something we yearn for with our bodies. We become bored with what we have, and try to escape our boredom by becoming engrossed in things. Sometimes this is something for the mind, like a story or a problem, and sometimes this is something for the body, like food or music.  The reali...

  “Our greatest advantage in coping with tribes so powerful is that they do not act together in concert. Seldom is it that two or three states meet together to ward off a common danger. Thus, while they fight singly, all are conquered. - Tactitus (A.D. 56?-120?). The life of Cnaeus Julius Agricola, 30, tr. Alfred J. Church and William J. Brodribb, 1942 This comment by Tactitus is about the Conquest of Britain by the Roman general ASgricoa. It references the fact that in their Conquest of Britain, the local tribes did not tend to form large alliances in order to resist the Roman invasion. If several of you face an enemy which none of you can match singly, but which cannot match all of you communally, then the only method to resist invasion is to band together in order to resist as one order. This is, of course, obvious advice to give - so why is it so rarely followed? I imagine that we consider several possible reasons here: Miscommunication, mistrust, greed, and misevaluation....

  “There's a scheme of evasion which has gotten into everybody. It's as though people were to say: "I get home dog tired after a terrible day out in that jungle, and then I don't want to think about it. Enough! I want to be brainwashed. I'm going to have my dinner and drink some beer, and I'm going to sit watching TV until I pass out - because that's how I feel." That means people are not putting up a struggle for the human part of themselves. - Saul Bellow (1915- ). "'Matters have gotten out of hand,' in a Violent Society," U.S. News & World Report, 28 June 1982 What is the human part of ourselves? If we are avoiding the human part of ourselves by going home and passing out, that activity whereby we enter into the home after along day and decide that, for now, we want to just experience without doing, to become a couch potato, then the part of us which we are neglecting is that part of us which is a 'do-er'. Of course w...

  Winston Churchill: Do you really never drink any wine at all? Shaw: I am hard enough to keep in order as it is - George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950). Format adapted. In Winston Churchill, "George Bernard Shaw," Great Contemporaries, 1937   This is why I don’t drink much. It doesn't feel to me that something like alcohol will make my life better in any way, because I always feel that my mental state is so finely balanced, that even something small, like a drink or a drug, is likely to upset it. From this moment, I will then spiral outward, either ending up crashing and burning because I acted out too much, or ending up super depressed and quiet because I have no idea what to do with myself. I think that many people drink because they feel that drinking is a social activity, and if I ever do drink, then it is for this purpose - to fit in. However, because I know that I will spiral, I am also aware that to ‘fit in’, is often the same as ‘giving in to peer pressure’, and that...

  "When you stop drinking, you have to deal with this marvelous personality that started you drinking in the first place." - Jimmy Breslin (1930- ), Table Money, 11,1986 What sort of personality starts you drinking anyway? The two kinds of people who I know that start to drink heavily are those who are either unhappy in their lives otherwise, or those who find drinking to be a supporter of a strong social presence. If you stop drinking, then all of a sudden you are either unhappy all of the time, or you lose all of your finds. In either case, your life will feel to you like it has gotten worse. If you are now healthier and more emotionally stable, then you are also sick in heart or head, or are, while being emotionally stable, also very low emotionally. Alcohol is a drug, a chemical concoction which does certain things to your brain. Humans have been dunking for as long as there have been humans, This is because there are benefits to drinking. Drinking alcohol can get you t...

  "With the introduction of agriculture mankind entered upon a long period of meanness, misery, and madness, from which they are only now being freed by the beneficent operation of the machine. …Companionship and cooperation are essential elements in the happiness of the average man, and these are to be obtained in industry far more fully than in agriculture.” - Bertrand Russel (1872-1970). The Conquest of Happiness, 10, 1930 Agriculture, for all the virtues that living a life engaged with it can bring, has also lead to many a mean and miserable life. It is a joy to garden for health, wealth, and happiness, but not quite so much a joy when your whole livelihood can depend upon the advent of a single harvest, or the vagaries of the rain. What's more, because of the human tendency to always look for the best things in life, we will tend to expect, not our poorest harvests, but our better ones. As we grow our societies, the foundation of wealth is in the land, but so too can t...

  "Of all the occupations by which gain is secured, none is better than agriculture, none more profitable, none more delightful, none more becoming to a free man." - Cicero(106-43 B.C.) De officiis, 1.52, tr. Walter Miller, 1913 What is so good about engaging in agriculture? I think that there are two ways to approach this issue. The first is to imagine agriculture as it was in the time of Cicero, two thousand years ago. In this sense, agriculture is literally the working of the land and the raising of crops. The ideal farmer who Cicero would have been talking about is the Roman Citizen who runs a small family farm, and owns his own land. The farmer would have needed to be a tough and self-sufficient sort of person, healthy, and who in all likelihood would have spent some time as a soldier. The second way we can imagine agriculture is to think of it as way of utilizing natural resources in order to achieve a surplus of goods. In this sense, 'agriculture' may be wide...

  "The youth have aspirations which never come to pass, the old have reminisces of what never happened." - Saki (1870-1916). "Reginald at the Carlton," Reginald, 1904 The youth is what we are before, and the aged is what we are after. To be young is to be full of vim and vigor, to be raring off into the sunset at the last chance, and to be as unsure of where we are going as we are of where we are right now. A youth is someone who has not yet done what they set out to do. On the contrary, the old have spent their vim and vigor in pursuit of building a life, love to sit and stare at the sunset during the evening, and know quite well where they are, and where they are shortly going to be. An aged person is someone who has done something, and hope that it is what they set out to do. To be old and young are relative states, for one can be both old and young at the same time - we must only be old and young in different ways. When I speak with someone, they are both olde...

  "In old age the root of virtue is fatigue; in youth, fear." - Paul Eldredge (1888-1962). Maxims for a Modern  Man, 258, 1965 Philosophically, virtue means excellence, but in this quote I think that virtue means 'good'. That is, to be virtuous, in the vernacular, is to be a person who follows moral laws and does good deeds. To be virtuous because of fatigue is to be good because you can't bother to act bad. To be virtuous because of fear is to be good because you are afraid of being bad, or of being seen to be bad. For example, imagine you are in an experience where you need to be brave, like being treated. Do you stand up straight and nod give in, moral speaking, because you are afraid to fail, or because you just can't take it anymore? If you are in a time and place where you have the ability to act honestly or dishonestly, why do you tell the truth? To tell the truth because of fatigue might be to be truthful because you know how exhausting it can be to ...

  "In youth our  judgements are obscured by our hopes; in age, by our regrets. - Paul Eldridge, 1965 We are so often filled with our regrets, which are but hope denied. When we think back on our regrets, what we are most bereaved of is the fact that we cannot have done differently. What makes a regret what it is, is that we wish we would have done different. Y We don't regret what happened to us, that we were Ina car accident, or that our pet died - rather is regret that we made the choices which we did. To regret a car accident is to wish that you had takes a different route that day, or that you had been able to switch the passenger and driver's sides. A regret does not have to be a specific choice that we did make, but can also be a choice that we wish we would have been able to make.  To hope for something is to wish that it will come to pass. Unlike what you regret, that which you hope for may be something which you do, or which happens to you. We hope to win the...

  "Sensuality reconciles us with the human race. The misanthrope of the old is due in large part to the fading of the magic glow of desire" - Eric Hoffer, 1973 Sensuality is not just desire in general; It is desire of the flesh. Desire of the present, the immediate, the overcoming, and the shared.  Sensuality, or being engaged without sense is a desire which almost always brings us straight back to the present, to the very moment when our desires are engaged. Whereas we spend most of our life thinking of what was and planning for what may be, which are avenues of the mind, the sensations brought on by a warm shower, a soft blanket, or a beautiful laugh, are avenues of the body. They are sensations which we do not manufacture for ourselves. Desire for a moment of sensuality may take the form of a daydream, but that daydream, when it is a matter of sensuality, is a daydream of a moment in the real world. It might be that achieving what we want, like buying the newest car or...

  "Whilst I was young and strong I was capable of very warm attachments, but of late years, thought I still have very friends feelings towards many persons, I have lost the power of becoming deeply attached to anyone, not even so deeply to my good and dear friends Hooker and Huxley, as I should formerly have been… The loss of these tastes is a loss of happiness, and may possibly be injurious to the intellect, and more probably to the moral character, by enfeebling the emotional part of our nature. " - Charles Darwin As a child, forming emotional attachments is essentially all that we do. There is little recollection of the past, preparation for the future, or settled lifestyle. As we grow older, the opposite is true, and we constantly remember and honor the past, are always thinking and preparing for the future, and we follow a procedure or a routine for most of our day. There are many reasons we may draw away from a tendency to form new strong emotional attachments, but at...