Everything--
a bumptious, stuck-up word.
It pretends to miss nothing,
to gather, hold, contain and have.
While all the while it's just
a shred of a gale.
--Wislawa Szymborska
""The intelligent man who is proud of his intelligence is like the condemned man who is proud of his large cell."
“United with his fellow-men by the strongest of all ties, the tie of a common doom, the free man finds that a new vision is with him always, shedding over every daily task the light of love. The life of Man is a long march through the night, surrounded by invisible foes, tortured by weariness and pain, towards a goal that few can hope to reach, and where none may tarry long. One by one, as they march, our comrades vanish from our sight, seized by the silent orders of omnipotent Death. Very brief is the time in which we can help them, in which their happiness or misery is decided. Be it ours to shed sunshine on their path, to lighten their sorrows by the balm of sympathy, to give them the pure joy of a never-tiring affection, to strengthen failing courage, to instil faith in hours of despair. Let us not weigh in grudging scales their merits and demerits, but let us think only of their need, of the sorrows, the difficulties, perhaps the blindnesses, that make the misery of their lives; let us remember that they are fellow-sufferers in the same darkness, actors in the same tragedy with ourselves.”
Bertrand Russell -- “The Free Man’s Worship" 1903"Cynicism is as dangerous as it is easy. It is far more difficult to argue in support of reason and principle, but it is vital that you do so. If you start by clerking, challenge your judge whenever you think he is yielding to self-indulgence. Whisper in his ear, as in Caesar's, "Remember you are a mortal and therefore fallible." If you work for the government, make sure the positions you take are legally and morally defensible. If you go into private practice, don't just make any argument your client is willing to pay for on the hope that the judge might be foolish that day. If you go into academia, criticize judicial self-indulgence wherever you see it and teach the next generation to do the same. Whatever you do, respect the law and respect yourself."
Judge Kozinski, 9th Circuit Court of Appeals -- 26 L.A. L. Rev. 993 (1993)What is easier to read is harder to write, and vice versa.
Judge Posner, The Federal Courts, p. 356 (1996)Rule #1: It doesn't matter. Whatever you think matters - doesn't. Follow this rule, and it will add decades to your life. It does not matter if you are late, or early; if you are here, or if you are there; if you said it, or did not say it; if you were clever, or if you were stupid; if you are having a bad hair day, or a no hair day; if your boss looks at you cockeyed; if your girlfriend or boyfriend looks at you cockeyed; if you don't get that promotion, or prize, or house, or if you do. It doesn't matter.
Roger Rosenblatt, Rules for Aging, Rule #1