Quotes from Ward Farnsworth

You ask what the finest life span would be? To live until you reach wisdom.

Take nothing on its looks; take everything on evidence. Dickens, Great Expectations (1861)

The minority gives way not because it is convinced that it is wrong, but because it is convinced that it is a minority. Stephen, Liberty, Equality, Fraternity (1873)

Originality consists in thinking for yourself, not in thinking differently from other people. Stephen, Liberty, Equality, Fraternity (1873)

The long view is good for morale. If it is an affront to the ego, it is also an antidote to vanity, ambition, and greed. Our ultimate insignificance makes the case for living well in the present, for no other purpose survives. It also suggests the value of viewing oneself as part of a whole.

If you want to take your own measure, put aside your money, your estates, your honors, and look inside yourself. At present you are taking the word of others for what you are. Seneca, Epistles 80.10

The French had shown themselves the ablest architects of ruin that had hitherto existed in the world. In that very short space of time they had completely pulled down to the ground their monarchy, their church, their nobility, their law, their revenue, their army, their navy, their commerce, their arts, and their manufactures. Burke, speech in the House of Commons (1790)

Posidonius holds that riches are a cause of evil, not because they do evil themselves but because of the evil they goad men to do. . . . Riches puff up the spirit and beget pride. They bring on envy and unsettle the mind to such an extent that a reputation for having money delights us, even when that reputation will do us harm. Seneca, Epistles 87.31

He who has need of riches feels fear on their account. But no man enjoys a blessing that brings anxiety. He is always trying to add a little more. While he puzzles over increasing his wealth, he forgets how to use it.

Aporia is a form of it.

Then we say, "Lord God, let me not be distressed." Moron, don't you have hands? Didn't God make them for you? So are you going to sit down and pray that your nose will stop running?

On a Socratic view it's never time to give up. We do better by accepting that the search probably has no end but going on anyway as if it might. For even if you can't possess the truth, you can get closer to it.

Remember that you are an actor in a play of whatever kind the producer may choose. If a short one, short; if a long one, long. If he wants you to play a beggar, see that you act even this part naturally; or a cripple, or a ruler, or an ordinary citizen. Your task is to give a good performance of the part that you are assigned. To select the part belongs to someone else.

The Role of Deterrence in the Formulation of Criminal Law Rules: At Its Worst When Doing Its Best, 91 Geo. L J. 949 (2003); Dan M. Kahan, The Secret Ambition of Deterrence, 113 Harv. L. Rev. 413 (1999) ;

Like a bowl of water, so is the soul; like the light falling on the water, so are the impressions the soul receives. When the water is disturbed, the light also seems to be disturbed; yet it is not disturbed. Epictetus, Discourses 3.4.20

Of this I am quite sure, that if we open a quarrel between the past and the present, we shall find that we have lost the future. Churchill, speech in the House of Commons (1940)

When a steadfast mind knows that there is no difference between a day and an age, whatever the days or events that may come, then it can look out from the heights and laugh as it reflects on the succession of the ages. Seneca, Epistles 101.9

All men live enveloped in whale-lines. All are born with halters round their necks; but it is only when caught in the swift, sudden turn of death, that mortals realize the silent, subtle, ever-present perils of life. And if you be a philosopher, though seated in the whale-boat, you would not at heart feel one whit more of terror, than though seated before your evening fire with a poker, and not a harpoon, by your side. Melville, Moby-Dick (1851)

Don't imagine having things that you don't have. Rather, pick the best of the things that you do have and think of how much you would want them if you didn't have them. Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 7.27

Our criticisms of others therefore have a side benefit. They provide an unintentional glimpse at what is ugliest within us.