Resentment is the one emotion that can last a lifetime and will never let you down. All other emotions are fleeting and unreliable by comparison. I have tried hating someone for years, but found it impossible: hatred fades like the colors of pressed flowers. But resentment! It is the perfect ...
Everyone loves a tyrant, provided he is far enough away or long enough ago. Tyrants are much more interesting than so-called democratic politicians, especially nowadays, when so many of the latter have done nothing with their lives except sit electoral office. What, for example, would Latin ...
Yesterday a young woman who was unknown to me except at third hand died. She was the friend of a friend of my wife. Considering that I was personally unacquainted with her, and that there are about 1500 deaths a day in my country alone, her death affected me to a surprising degree. She was 38 ...
A small item in one of those free newspapers that end up on the seats of the world's subway systems caught my attention yesterday. It was in the Paris Métro; I read it while sitting next to an old schizophrenic lady who was addressing her hallucinations with vehemence, while a female drug ...
Some questions are asked in a spirit of inquiry, to obtain answers, but others are asked to intimidate or badger or coerce agreement with a point of view and establish the irreproachable virtue of the persons who ask them. I received such a question by email the other day from the Lancet, one of ...
Patriotic effusions, whosever they may be, seldom please citizens of other nations, because they are generally so self-congratulatory; and self-congratulation, which is no doubt an inescapable part of the human condition, is best kept to oneself even when justified. Occasional outbursts may be ...
Nothing is important or unimportant, but thinking makes it so. Nevertheless, other people's priorities infuriate us: We think them fools for worrying over trifles, while they disregard entirely what we think is of the greatest significance. No one's emotions are stirred, however, in precise ...
The only time I regret not being much richer than I am is when I receive through the post (as I did yesterday) the catalogue of an antiquarian bookseller. Otherwise, I am more or less contented with my financial lot, but such a catalogue excites for a time my avarice and passion to possess, which ...
A story that appeared recently in Libération, the left-wing French newspaper in financial difficulty, seemed to me to capture the spirit of our times very well. It concerned an attack on a teacher in a ZEP (a zone d"éducation prioritaire), one of those areas in which children are brought ...
Legless South African Olympic runner Oscar Pistorius is now on trial for having killed"deliberately or otherwise"his girlfriend. Although I have my own theory of the case, based (as our opinions about most things are) more upon general principles and knowledge of the world than upon a ...
