Adversaria (25)
‘Her psychic membrane was so permeable that she picked up on clues that lay far beneath the surface of daily life’ —James Hollis (Living with Borrowed Dust: Reflections on Life, Love, and Other Grievances, 42%)
‘Dream work is work, and it is a very uncertain forensic endeavor’ —James Hollis (Living with Borrowed Dust: Reflections on Life, Love, and Other Grievances, 44%)
‘When “facts” are unpleasant, one can create “alternative facts.” such a tawdry device may offer a moment’s comfort, but it is, ultimately, a psychotic way to make one’s critical decisions’ —James Hollis (Living with Borrowed Dust: Reflections on Life, Love, and Other Grievances, 54%)
‘So we are to find the old gods in the fevers of the flesh, the disquietude of the stomach, the contentions of the heart, and so on’ —James Hollis (Living with Borrowed Dust: Reflections on Life, Love, and Other Grievances, 82%)
‘It is the process itself—the damnably hard work of living with an idea long enough so that it gradually becomes the basis for a new existence even as the old one is disappearing—that is actually the analysis’ —Vivian Gornick (‘Toward a Definition of the Female Sensibility’, in Taking a Long Look, p. 265)
‘His purpose was to contrast this supposedly fair-minded approach with that of modern scientists who dismissed astrology without bothering to understand its claims. If the desire to shock is very obvious, so too is a certain intellectual frivolity’ —Robin Briggs (Witches & Neighbors, p. 372)
‘…routine performances are adequate only to routine occasions’ —Michael Walzer (Political Action, 14%)
‘They are in search precisely of a politics that does not require them to support candidates who are only barely better than their opponents and who have, most likely, weak and vacillating positions on what the activists believe is the crucial issue. Sentiment of this sort is entirely justified’ —Michael Walzer (Political Action, 23%)
‘…for many people, a cause, even their own cause, is a luxury they can only occasionally afford’ —Michael Walzer (Political Action, 32%)
‘To argue about decision-making in general usually doesn’t make sense and isn’t necessary’ —Michael Walzer (Political Action, 40%)
‘Marginal politics attracts marginal people who are ill at ease, resentful, graceless, unhappy, or frightened in the everyday world’ —Michael Walzer (Political Action, 64%)
‘…good politics most often consists in doing the same thing over and over again. Like many other worthwhile human activities, it requires a considerable capacity for boredom’ —Michael Walzer (Political Action, 75%)
‘Politics is sometimes interesting, urgent, dangerous; more often, in any decent society, it is none of those things’ —Michael Walzer (Political Action, 96%)
‘…if we turn a benefit into a commodity, the value of something very important will be destroyed. We do not need to encourage the mind to greed, quarrels, and strife; it rushes down that road all on its own’ —Seneca (On Benefits, trans. Miriam Griffin & Brad Inwood, 3.14.4)
‘You should adjust your minds to the semblance of truth and, while you are learning virtue, respect whatever boasts the name of virtue’ —Seneca (On Benefits, trans. Miriam Griffin & Brad Inwood, 5.14.5)
‘We are ungrateful en masse. Let each one question himself: there is no one who does not complain of someone’s ingratitude’ —Seneca (On Benefits, trans. Miriam Griffin & Brad Inwood, 5.17.3)