a wider view

[dichroic]

Maybe from here on to the election I should just stick to posting quotes that touch me – I’ve been coming across a bunch lately, though not all of them work out of context. Tonight seems to be the night for thoughts on good and evil – I happened on these two in rapid suggestion (my erg book and my other book).

“Imaginary evil is romantic and varied; real evil is gloomy, monotonous, barren, boring. Imaginary good is boring; real good is always new, marvelous, intoxicating.”
— Simone Weil, by way of Gretchen Rubin’s The Happiness Project

This bit is just after Rabbi Small has explained that Jews don’t really believe in any afterlife (an oversimplification, but anyway).
“Then why bother to be good?” asked Mrs Lanigan.
“Because virtue really does carry its own reward and evil its own punishment. Because evil is always essentially small and petty and mean and depraved, and in a limited life it represents a portion wasted, misused and that can never be regained.”
— Harry Kemelman, Friday the Rabbi Slept Late

Mirrored from Dichroic Reflections.