What Makes Us Ill

"The great majority of us are required to live a life of constant duplicity. Your health ist bound to be affected if, day after day, you say the opposite of what you feel, if you grovel before what you dislike, and rejoice at what brings you nothing but misfortune."

Boris Pasternak

Winning Self-Respect

"No man who is occupied in doing a very difficult thing, and doing it very well, ever loses his self-respect."

George Bernard Shaw

What's the difference, after all?

A miser sold all that he had and bought a lump of gold, which he buried in a hole in the ground by the side of an old wall and went to look at daily. One of his workmen observed his frequent visits to the spot and decided to watch his movements. He soon discovered the secret of the hidden treasure, and digging down, came to the lump of gold, and stole it. The Miser, on his next visit, found the hole empty and began to tear his hair and to make loud lamentations. A neighbor, seeing him overcome with grief and learning the cause, said, "Pray do not grieve so; but go and take a stone, and place it in the hole, and fancy that the gold is still lying there. It will do you quite the same service; for when the gold was there, you had it not, as you did not make the slightest use of it."

Aesop

Euromess

"The truth is that lack of fiscal discipline isn't the whole, or even the main, source of Europe's trouble - not even in Greece, whose government was indeed irresponsible. No, the real story behind the euromess lies not in the profligacy of politicians but in the arrogance of elites - specifically, the policy elites who pushed Europe into adopting a single currency well before the continent was ready for such an experiment."

Paul Krugman

Why and how we tell stories

In a monumental book Christopher Booker provides an answer to the old riddle of whether there are only a certain number of stories in the world. He contends that all storytelling is a variation of "The Basic Seven Plots". At first, this seems an absurd idea. But Booker's work - 700 pages of stunning literary research - is a truly remarkable achievement, penetrating the archetypal roots of human consciousness and imagination. A fascinating and important reading experience, not just for writers.

Don't Take Anything For Granted!

Chocolate & Cherries?

Chocolate’s reputation as an aphrodisiac is highly exaggerated, food researchers say. True, it does contain some chemicals like phenylethylamine, which produce feelings of euphoria. Yet one widely cited study showed that a 70 kg person would have to eat 10 kg of chocolate in one sitting to significantly alter the mood. But who would be in the mood after eating 19.2 percent of her weight in chocolate? Nor is it a good idea to talk your date into trying the black forest tart for dessert. One study found that the scent of cherries significantly decreases sexual arousal in women.

Going Up!

"When you're down and out, something always turns up - and it's usually the noses of your friends."

Orson Welles

Artists

"Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once one grows up."

Pablo Picasso

Opinions

"A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices."

William James