Ed Dowding

It’s ok to do the right thing, even if it’s not the most profitable thing. Still shocking news for many, alas

From a memorial plaque in Bath Abbey today:

“His faults were but as transient shades of his many and brilliant virtues.”

Please put this on my epitaph, please!

Twitter profiles saying “views are my own” disturb me.

It implies at least one of these:

• You’re prone to parroting shit you don’t believe
• You work for a tyrant who is uncomfortable with you speaking your mind
• You’re scared of lawyers

Which also implies, therefore, that the rest of what you say is likely to be of negligible value, since why would I value the opinions of someone who is happy with any of the above?

Thankfully this provides me with another opportunity to air this perennial favourite from XKCD

And for Rock Hard Cop fans: “I don’t get it.. aliens?”

It was there that in the purity of the air around me I truly began to unravel the real reason for the change in my mood, and the return to that inner peace which I had lost for such a long time. Indeed, it is a general impression…that on high mountains, where the air is pure and fine, one feels more ease in breathing, more lightness in the body, more serenity in the mind; pleasures are less ardent there, passions more moderate.

Meditations take on an indefinable character of greatness and sublimity, proportionate to the objects which strike us, and a certain tranquil, exquisite pleasure…

It seems that in rising above the dwelling place of men, one leaves behind all base, earthly feelings, and that as one approaches the ethereal regions, the soul takes on something of their unchanging purity.

by Jean-Jacques Rousseau via Ali Thomson