The most sensible people to be met with in society are men of business and of the world, who argue from what they see and know, instead of spinning cobweb distinctions of what things ought to be.
During the years I lived here, the people of Alexandra ignored tribal and ethnic distinctions. Instead of being Xhosas, or Sothos, or Zulus, or Shangaans, we were Alexandrans. We were one people, and we undermined the distinctions that the apartheid government tried so hard to impose. It saddens and angers me to see the rising hatred of foreigners.
The world of time, of space and condition, pleasure and pain, birth, growth, maturation, decay and death, spinning, spinning, spinning this world, always spinning.
When we are in the company of sensible men, we ought to be doubly cautious of talking too much, lest we lose two good things, their good opinion and our own improvement; for what we have to say we know, but what they have to say we know not.
The wheel [migration] has been spinning and spinning and spinning. Wouldn't it be nice to imagine a world where that circle stops spinning in that crazy way? Because that's a huge wheel that's crushing people's lives, real people's lives, families.
I think, for a lot of people, men or women, it's easy to have things not affect you because, it doesn't affect you. So to be a better ally, you have to look at it as if it's someone you know instead of this abstract person you've never met.
INDIFFERENT, adj. Imperfectly sensible to distinctions among things.
Maybe if I'd studied writing instead of anthropology, I'd be more sensible. You know - pick a genre, follow the rules, stay in the box - but let's face it. Sensible people don't major in anthropology.
Gnomes live ten times faster than humans. They're harder to see than a high-speed mouse. That's one reason why most humans hardly ever see them. The other is that humans are very good at not seeing things they know aren't there. And, since sensible humans know that there are no such things as people four inches high, a gnome who doesn't want to be seen probably won't be seen... Wings.
I see that sensible men and conscientious men all over the world were of one religion of well-doing and daring.
I would love to see Mr. (Henry) Ford in there, really. I don't know who started the idea that a President must be a Politician instead of a Business man. A Politician can't run any other kind of business. So there is no reason why he can run the U.S. That's the biggest single business in the World.
I'm in the game of spinning plates. I'm spinning a boxing plate. I'm spinning a Tae Kwon Do plate. I'm spinning a Jujitsu plate. I'm spinning a freestyle wrestling plate. I'm spinning a karate plate. If I was to put all them down and have one boxing plate spinning, it would be like a load off my shoulders.
But there is another and greater distinction for which no truly natural or religious reason can be assigned, and that is the distinction of men into kings and subjects. Male and female are the distinctions of nature, good and bad the distinctions of heaven; but how a race of men came into the world so exalted above the rest, and distinguished like some new species, is worth inquiring into, and whether they are the means of happiness or of misery to mankind.
We're going to win this war, you know, now that our army's together. But the world doesn't care who wins. It'll go on spinning, no matter how many people are slaughtered." After a moment, he added. "I almost wish it wouldn't, if we aren't allowed to go on spinning with it.
Whoever wants music instead of noise, joy instead of pleasure, soul instead of gold, creative work instead of business, passion instead of foolery, finds no home in this trivial world of ours.
It's a little awkward to know that the world is going to see you and your mom argue about stupid things and watch me get grounded...again.
I've met some of the most beautiful women in the world, and I can tell you lots of them are the most unattractive people I've ever met.