On Life and Living ~ by Seneca and Kierkegaard

On Life and Living

~ Seneca and Kierkegaard~

 Seneca (4 BC. - 65 AD)

-[On "the shortness of life"]

The greatest obstacle to living is expectancy, which hangs upon tomorrow and loses today… The whole future lies in uncertainty: live immediately.

- [On busyness, "the dual demon of distraction and preoccupation"]

Everyone hustles his life along, and is troubled by a longing for the future and weariness of the present. But the man who … organizes every day as though it were his last, neither longs for nor fears the next day….

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Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855)

- [On busyness, "the distraction from living" and from "boredom"]

Generally, those who do not bore themselves are busy in the world in one way or another, but for that very reason they are, of all people, the most boring of all, the most unbearable... The other class of human beings, the superior ones, are those who bore themselves....

- [On "idleness" and "boredom"]

Idleness as such is by no means a root of evil; on the contrary, it is a truly divine life, if one is not bored.... Idleness, then, is so far from being the root of evil that it is rather the true good. Boredom is the root of evil; it is that which must be held off. Idleness is not the evil; indeed, it may be said that everyone who lacks a sense for it thereby shows that he has not raised himself to the human level.

Also a Man for All Seasons ! ~ By TPO

Also a Man for All Seasons ! 

~ By TPO ~

 From the mind of Bertrand Russell ...

~  Drunkenness is temporary suicide.

~  I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong.

~  If there were in the world today any large number of people who desired their own happiness more than they desired the unhappiness of others, we could have a paradise in a few years.

~  In America everybody is of the opinion that he has no social superiors, since all men are equal, but he does not admit that he has no social inferiors, for, from the time of Jefferson onward, the doctrine that all men are equal applies only upwards, not downwards.

~  It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly.

~  Liberty is the right to do what I like; license, the right to do what you like.

~  Men are born ignorant, not stupid. They are made stupid by education.

~  Neither a man nor a crowd nor a nation can be trusted to act humanely or to think sanely under the influence of a great fear.

~  One should respect public opinion insofar as is necessary to avoid starvation and keep out of prison, but anything that goes beyond this is voluntary submission to an unnecessary tyranny.

~  Patriots always talk of dying for their country and never of killing for their country.

~  Religions, which condemn the pleasures of sense, drive men to seek the pleasures of power. Throughout history power has been the vice of the ascetic.

~  Science is what you know, philosophy is what you don't know.

~  The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd.

~  The megalomaniac differs from the narcissist by the fact that he wishes to be powerful rather than charming, and seeks to be feared rather than loved. To this type belong many lunatics and most of the great men of history.

~  The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt.

~  To acquire immunity to eloquence is of the utmost importance to the citizens of a democracy.

~  To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness.

~  To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.

~  War does not determine who is right - only who is left.

~  We are faced with the paradoxical fact that education has become one of the chief obstacles to intelligence and freedom of thought.

~  Why is propaganda so much more successful when it stirs up hatred than when it tries to stir up friendly feeling?

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