Asking oneself

How would you like to be treated like that? How would you like the teensiest weensiest details of your lives to be known by everyone? How would you like the pressure and the stress of not ever being able to go out the front door without being followed, your every move documented, your every word printed? How would you like your pain to be turned into publicity and your grief into gossip.
But, no, you didn't think about that, did you?

by Toby Litt from Adventures in capitalism

The pleasure of being civilized

Lord Henry shrugged his shoulders. "My dear fellow, medieval art is charming, but medieval emotions are out of date. One can use them in fiction, of course. But then the only things that one can use in fiction are the things that one has ceased to use in fact. Believe me, no civilized man ever regrets a pleasure, and no uncivilized man ever knows what pleasure is."

by Oscar Wilde from The Picture of Dorian Gray

There's another Oscar Wilde related post

To be replaced with Smith

First of all there is Blue. Later there is White, and then there is Black, and before the beginning there is Brown. Brown broke him in, Brown taught him the ropes, and when Brown grew old, Blue took over. That is how it begins. The place is New York, the time is the present, and neither one will ever change. Blue goes to his office every day and sits at his desk, waiting for something to happen. For a long time nothing does, and then a man named White walks through the door, and that is how it begins.

by Paul Auster from The New York Trilogy

Help me Doc!

I CANNOT help being happy. I’ve struggled against it but no good. There is, I am well aware, no virtue whatever in this. It results from a combination of heredity, health, good fortune and shallow intellect.

ARTHUR MARSHALL, British broadcaster, 1910–89

from The Optimist’s / Pessimist’s Handbook by Niall Edworthy & Petra Cramsie

Love me in Latin

David Beckham did not study Latin at Chingford School in Essex. The subject had long been off the state school curriculum by the time he got there in the late 1980s. Still, when it comes to his body art, the footballer is a dedicated Latinist. Of the nine tattoos on his body, three are in Latin (and two of the others, “Victoria” and “Romeo”, are Latin-inspired names).

by Harry Mount from Amo, Amas, Amat…and All That

The paradox of perfection

The Marketing Problem
Oscar Wilde wrote: “The play was a great success but the audience was a total failure.” Some people tell me their business is fine – the problem is the customers!

by David Parrish from T-Shirts and Suits: A Guide to the Business of Creativity

Are we human?

Animal societies, for the most part are organised according to a strict hierarchy where rank relates directly to the psychical strength of each member. The most dominant male in the group is known as the alpha male, his nearest rival the beta male, and so on down to the weakest of the group, the omega male.

by Michel Houellebecq from Atomised