#co

Don't call me 'gentleman'. I work for a livin'. ↗

— Tamora Pierce

#george-cooper #humour #labels #humour

Okay, this is the wisdom. First, time spent on reconnaissanse is never wasted. Second, almost anything can be improved with the addition of bacon. And finally, there is no problem on Earth that can't be ameliorated by a hot bath and a cup of tea. ↗

— Jasper Fforde

#hot-baths #humour #problem #reconnaissance #tea

The urge to shout filthy words at the top of his voice was as strong as ever. ↗

— George Orwell

#conformity #control #profanity #sexuality #conformity

You can't let the truth bring out the worst and let it get the best of you. ↗

— Criss Jami

#best #clever #condescension #humble #humility

I must say that, beyond occasionally exposing me to laughter, my constitutional shyness has been no dis-advantage whatever. In fact I can see that, on the contrary, it has been all to my advantage. My hesitancy in speech, which was once an annoyance, is now a pleasure. Its greatest benefit has been that it has taught me the economy of words. I have naturally formed the habit of restraining my thoughts. And I can now give myself the certificate that a thoughtless word hardly ever escapes my tongue or pen. I do not recollect ever having had to regret anything in my speech or writing. I have thus been spared many a mishap and waste of time. Experience has taught me that silence is part of the spiritual discipline of a votary of truth. Proneness to exaggerate, to suppress or modify the truth, wittingly or unwittingly, is a natural weakness of man, and silence is necessary in order to surmount it. A man of few words will rarely be thoughtless in his speech; he will measure every word. We find so many people impatient to talk. There is no chairman of a meeting who is not pestered with notes for permission to speak. And whenever the permission is given the speaker generally exceeds the time-limit, asks for more time, and keeps on talking without permission. All this talking can hardly be said to be of any benefit to the world. It is so much waste of time. My shyness has been in reality my shield and buckler. It has allowed me to grow. It has helped me in my discernment of truth. ↗

— Mahatma Gandhi

#thoughtfulness #thoughtlessness #experience

Never put off writing until you are better at it. ↗

— Gary Henderson

#improvement #on-writing #writing #improvement

It is simply wrong to begin with a theme, symbol or other abstract unifying agent, and then try to force characters and events to conform to it. ↗

— Thomas Pynchon

#conformity

perhaps, if one wishes to remain an individual in the midst of the teeming multitudes, one must make oneself grotesque. ↗

— Salman Rushdie

#individualism #conformity

It would be well to realize that the talk of ‘humane methods of warfare’, of the ‘rules of civilized warfare’, and all such homage to the finer sentiments of the race are hypocritical and unreal, and only intended for the consumption of stay-at-homes. There are no humane methods of warfare, there is no such thing as civilized warfare; all warfare is inhuman, all warfare is barbaric; the first blast of the bugles of war ever sounds for the time being the funeral knell of human progress… What lover of humanity can view with anything but horror the prospect of this ruthless destruction of human life. Yet this is war: war for which all the jingoes are howling, war to which all the hopes of the world are being sacrificed, war to which a mad ruling class would plunge a mad world. ↗

— James Connolly

#civilized #death #destruction #elite #humanity

If a man does not keep pace with his companion, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. ↗

— Henry David Thoreau

#individuality #conformity