Unusually Wise Quotes & Sayings

collectivity, on the other hand, is the place of what the seventeenth-century French philosopher Blaise Pascal calls "divertissement," an untranslatable word which roughly means "distraction" or "diversion": It is the escape from life's problems, and also its invitations, into activities that in ultimate terms are meaningless. It is a constant turning to superficial actions as a way to avoid facing the true realities of human life. The soap operas and situation comedies easily become an addiction. They take the place of the "bread and circuses" of ancient Rome. There was plenty wrong with Roman society and the Roman emperors offered the diversion of food and entertainment to make people forget the banality and meaninglessness of the lives they lived. Our society does much the same and has ever so much more in the way of sophisticated tools for doing so. — William H. Shannon

I have never understood why they tried to start the revolution by taking over the universities. It should have been self-evident that the net result of success would be to close the universities but leave the nation unaffected
at least, for quite a long time. Nor do I find it easy to believe that the rebels, as intelligent as most of them were, seriously expected that they could keep the universities alive as corporate bodies, once they had control of them, if they made the fundamental alterations in organization and role that they proposed to. — Muriel Beadle

CUSTOMER CAN DESTROY YOUR BUSINESS. — Deepak Gupta

Don't worry, Mer. I'll take care of you. — Kiera Cass

Joe Bonomo has written a fine book: a book not only about a band or times passed, but also about the rare virtue of endurance. — Nick Tosches

There are only so many hours in the day, and chances are that if you have a successful career it's your job that takes up most of them. As the economy flourishes are we in the grip of an emotional recession? Have we made our jobs the primary relationships in our lives, settling for a so-so boyfriend because that's all we have the time to either find or maintain? — Jennifer Cox

When posing for a photograph, spinsters should avoid looking desperate or deprived. A serene smile will show that your circumstances are by choice and not for lack of beauty or character. -Miss Gertrude Hasslebrink, 1878 — Margaret Brownley