"If you're going to play what-if --which, by the way, is a huge waste of time and energy, not to mention an act of supreme, center-of-the-universe narcissism-- you have to play it both ways. If you're going to imagine yourself as an accidental villain, you have to give yourself equal time as an unwitting hero. As somebody who prevented God-knows-what dire disaster simply by doing exactly the things you did."

-- Jefferson Bass

#Hero Quotes #Play Quotes #Giving Quotes

“Taking care of children has nothing to do with politics. I think perhaps with time, instead of there being a politicisation of humanitarian aid, there will be a humanisation of politics.”
“The happy problem of our time - longer life.”
“It's not what you pay a man, but what he costs you that counts.”
“But the trouble with sainthood these days is the robe-and-halo imagery that gets stuck onto it." Carl got that brooding look again. "People forget that robes were street clothes once... and still are, in a lot of places. And halos are to that fierce air of innocence what speech balloons in comics are to the sound of the voice itself. Shorthand. But most people just see an old symbol and don't bother looking behind it for the meaning. Sainthood starts to look old-fashioned, unattainable... even repellent. Actually, you can see it all around, once you learn to spot it.”
“The genius of the French language, descended from its single Latin stock, has triumphed most in the contrary direction - in simplicity, in unity, in clarity, and in restraint.”

Source : Lytton Strachey (2016). “Delphi Complete Works of Lytton Strachey (Illustrated)”, p.22, Delphi Classics
“Your belief system saturates the space around you.”
“It is much easier to be a hero than a gentleman.”
“I guessed life was like that. You gained and you lost, and if you saved anything from the ruins, even if only a shred of self-respect, it was enough to take you through the next bit.”

Source : Dick Francis (1981). “Whip hand: Trial run ; Twice shy”

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