An old saying comes down to us from the Bajan people of Barbados: “There is no magical place called ‘Away'”. The Bajans have some credibility on the subject since most came from someplace else and most have also since dispersed elsewhere.
Bajan fusion band Cover Drive
Well we will be testing the theory ourselves this week as we will be escaping “Away” off the grid. Whether or not we return any more magical than we already are remains to be seen.
We so much appreciate all who have contributed tidbits of wisdom over the past few months using our submit a suggestion form. We have now amassed over 4,800 such tidbits which we can now draw from as we expand our conversation past the 700 – odd items already linked together on the proctorcharlie.com prototype. You can also use that third free text field on the submit a suggestion form to help us improve what we already have. Some things to look for:
misspellings
mis-attributed wisdom
links which take you back to the page you were just on, or were very recently on
anything else which tempts you to snort and declare, “What kind of bozos do the Proctor Charlie Collective think they are?”
Enjoy the spring or autumn weather from wherever in the world you are and we will be back in mid-May.
One last item: we have also been busy in recent weeks creating specs for a very simple iOS and Android app in hopes to spread the literary wisdom wealth further yet. If you or someone you know may want to earn a few bucks helping us crank that out let us know. Where? On the submit a suggestion form of course.
Bandits and governments ’ave so much in common that they might be interchangeable anywhere in the world…
— Terry Pratchett
Division is how evil operates.
— Lenny Duncan
Fear of finding oneself in bad company is not an expression of political purity; it is an expression of a lack of self-confidence.
— Arthur Koestler
For forms of government let fools contest, that which is best administered is best.
— Alexander Pope
Great reforms offend great interests.
— Winston Churchill
Ignorance and design are difficult to combat.
— George Washington
In politics the influence of imponderables is often greater than that of either military power or money.
Politics is the art of the possible.
— Otto von Bismarck
It is not power that corrupts but fear.
— Aung San Suu Kyi
It seems part of the human condition to always simplify in rhetoric while complicating in practice.
Political systems remain in flux because the dedicated moderate must always give way, eventually, to the passionate extremist.
— Proctor Charlie
Memory is inherently contentious and partisan: one man’s acknowledgment is another’s omission.
— Tony Judt
Never build a dungeon you wouldn’t be happy to spend the night in yourself.
— Terry Pratchett
People have a need for the externalization of evil. They have the need to think that there is somewhere an enemy boundlessly evil because this makes them feel boundlessly good.
Writing history is the common refuge of those who find themselves helpless in the face of the present.
— George Kennan
Politics brought forth, if not the worst in men, at least the worst in what people said about men.
— Benjamin Franklin
Politics is a smooth file, which cuts gradually, and attains its end by a slow progression.
— Charles de Montesquieu
Some people are worried about the difference between right and wrong. I’m worried about the difference between wrong and fun.
What this country needs is fewer people who know what this country needs.
Politics is one more way to achieve power without merit or risk.
— P.J. O’Rourke (Editorial note: so is journalism – PC)
The best politics is right action.
— Mahatma Gandhi
The punishment of wise men who refuse to take part in the affairs of government is to live under the government of unwise men.
— Plato
The really dangerous people believe that they are doing whatever they are doing solely and only because it is without question the right thing to do. And that is what makes them dangerous.
— Neil Gaiman
The spirit of place has an undeniable effect upon all of the ideas, as well as art and literature of a people.
— D. H. Lawrence
There is a great deal to be said for the status quo but this isn’t a position we could take publicly.
— John Foster Dulles
There is some danger in public life from stupid politicians; there is even more from politicians who are too clever.
— A.J.P. Taylor
Those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.
— George Bernard Shaw
To delight in war is a merit in the soldier, a dangerous quality in the captain, and a positive crime in the statesman.
— George Santayana
Truth tellers transcend partisan affiliations.
— Andrew J. Bacevich
War cannot be divorced from politics for a single moment.
— Mao Tse-tung
Washington is a place where politicians don’t know which way is up and taxes don’t know which way is down.
Never let it be said that Proctor Charlie was too proud to post a kitten picture. And with that, enjoy all that Proctor Charlie has found about a subject he knows so little of…
Chastity is a wealth that comes from abundance of love.
The great earth makes herself hospitable with the help of the grass.
The Great walks with the Small without fear. The Middling keeps aloof.
The meaning of the bee’s hum in the ear of the early jasmine has escaped the learned, but the poet knows.
The sparrow is sorry for the peacock at the burden of its tail.
The stars are not afraid to appear like fireflies.
We come nearest to the great when we are great in humility.
We read the world wrong and say that it deceives us.
— Rabindranath Tagore
Everybody in this world is some kind of weakling, and if he thinks he is not, then pride is his weakness, and that is the greatest weakness of all.
— Dr. Samuel Shoemaker
Humility — a quality that disappears the moment you think you have it.
— E.D. Hulse
Humility alone designs those short but admirable lines, by which, ungirt and unconstrained, things greater are in less contained.
— Andrew Marvell
Humility and intellect could be compatible, provided we placed humility first.
I don’t want to capitalize on humility.
True ambition is the deep desire to live usefully and walk humbly.
— Bill Wilson
I am no more than an idler in the garden of humanity, like a botanist out on a walk who picks a little bunch of flowers, a mere token of the inexhaustible richness of nature which escapes him.
People are always much more sensitive than we believe them to be.
— Paul Tournier
Humility is reality.
— Yvon Lauzon
I will show some respect for the eternal fitness of things.
Imagination labors best in distant fields.
We do not embellish the general desolation of a desert much.
— Mark Twain
A man cannot enjoy himself and continue to enjoy anything else.
Can it be that a man who begins with violent visions is humble?
Humility is not merely too good for this world; it is too practical for this world; I had almost said it is too worldly for this world.
Humility is so practical a virtue that men think it must be a vice.
Humility is so successful that it is mistaken for pride.
It is always the humble man who talks too much; the proud man watches himself too closely.
It is not only true that humility is a much wiser and more vigorous thing than pride. It is also true that vanity is a much wiser and more vigorous thing than pride.
It is the humble man who does the big things. It is the humble man who does the bold things.
Self-consciousness of necessity destroys self-revelation.
The things which are truly human are the useless ones.
— G.K. Chesterton
If I can find an acceptable way to do my own will I will do it.
When a proud man thinks he is humble his case is hopeless.
Perfect humility and perfect integrity coincide.
How can you be humble if you’re always paying attention to yourself?
A humble man is not afraid of failure.
Humility is the surest sign of strength.
— Thomas Merton
In matters of failure and forgiveness, the son is often the teacher of the father.
— Belden C. Lane
Is he not a man of complete virtue, who feels no discomposure though men may take no note of him?
— Confucius
It is only as one is at home in oneself that one may be truly hospitable to others.
We hide our humanity behind the sacred idol of efficiency.
— Kathleen Norris
It is the powerful, demanding, and punitive things that we admire or fear, but the small things that we love.
— Doug Frank
It was hard to teach someone who wouldn’t admit that there was anything she didn’t know.
We are small people. It ain’t wise to come to the attention of the gods.
— Terry Pratchett
Knowledge is proud that he has learned so much; wisdom is humble that he knows no more.
— William Cowper
Listen to the stories people want to tell, not the stories you want to hear.
— Jeanette M. Olson
Logic is the art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with the limitations and incapacities of the human understanding.
— Ambrose Bierce
Looking beautiful all day is easy, but I stay beautiful because I have integrity, honesty and a warm sense of humor.
— Barbara Borst-Folger
Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply.
— Stephen Covey
My ego does not do well with simple.
When the sea roars, with all that is in it, does it fear being too loud?
— Anonymous
My humility can kick your humility’s butt.
We have to harvest humility.
— Anne Lamott
Other people’s shoes smell like other people’s feet.
— Jenna Lamia
Religion in its humility restores man to his only dignity, the courage to live by grace.
To substitute faith for knowledge might mean to teach the intellect humility,
— George Santayana
She knew better than to force the world to bend to her desire.
— Patrick Rothfuss
The dead should have charity.
— Neil Gaiman
The genuine salt of humility cannot be used in excess.
— C.H. Spurgeon
The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of the mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one.
— Wilhelm Stekel
The noblest sacrifice of all is to endure humiliation, and noblest endurance of humiliation is in preparing to resist.
— Lao She
The value of words depends on the people who say them.
— Andreas Karkavitsas
There are many things in the world and you are one of them. Many things keep happening and you are one of them.
— W.H. Auden
There are on earth no actors too humble and obscure not to have a gallery.
— Joseph Conrad
This world needs its tinkerers as much as it needs its theoreticians.
— Jim Bell
To understand what he is, one man must first understand all this mysterious humanity, consisting of people such as himself who do not understand one another.
— Leo Tolstoy
You are not the voice that all things utter, nor is there eternal silence in the places where you cannot come.
— C.S.Lewis
You can’t become wise without becoming small.
— Gareth Higgins
You only need to be good enough for you.
— Neil Ostrom
Blessed are they that can laugh at themselves for they shall never cease to be amused.
— Terri Garey
Humble pie is most easily digested when salted with a dash of character.
Humility may be a virtue, but ’tis vanity which fuels the engines of commerce.
Humility is a heavenly deodorant.
I have heard many a preacher claim to be a humble loving person, but I have heard very few bonafide saints make the same claim.
Invest in humility, for the return on vanity will never exceed its depreciation.
Rather than a million adoring fans, give me a few good friends who all think well of themselves.
The first human instinct is to love. All other human instincts are borrowed from the beasts.
The noblest end of human reason is to find its own limits and thus to teach itself humility.
What human being who has survived adolescence has not experienced an embarrassment that felt worse than death?
