On Life and Death

The natural tendency of the human mind is to believe before knowing.

Gaston Bouthoul

in La Guerre 1953 / War 1962


Some people think there’s a plot to infect them.  That’s mistaken, but even worse, they’ve been infected with a paranoia that makes them think there’s a plot against them.  The lies they tell themselves are killing them.

William Stafford
in On Peace and War, 2003


Old men do not grow wise, they grow more careful.

Count Geffi,
in A Farewell to Arms,
Ernest Hemingway, 1929


A murder by a court of law is far more dreadful than a murder committed by a criminal.

Prince Myshkin, in
The Idiot
Fyodor Dostoevsky, 1868

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