I once conducted an informal survey, posing the following question: “If you are using more words than somebody wants to hear, do you want that person to pretend to listen or to stop you?” Of the scores of people I approached, all but one expressed a preference to be stopped. Their answers gave me courage by convincing me that it is more considerate to interrupt people than to pretend to listen.
Alla Milano-Sanremo del 1946, Coppi, scalatore perfetto, scollina in solitudine sul Passo del Turchino e arriva con 14 minuti sul secondo. Niccolò Carosio annuncia: “Primo Fausto Coppi. In attesa degli altri, trasmettiamo musica da ballo”.
And death was declared.
Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something.
It is not things in themselves that trouble us, but our opinions of things.
Going about with matted hair, without food or bath, sleeping on the ground smeared with dust or sitting motionless - no amount of penance can help a person whose mind is not purified. But those whose mind is serene and chaste, whose senses are controlled and whose life is nonviolent - these are true brahmins, true monks, even if they wear fine clothes.
Immaginavi tu forse che il mondo fosse fatto per causa vostra? Ora sappi che nelle fatture, negli ordini e nelle operazioni mie, trattone pochissime, sempre ebbi ed ho l’intenzione a tutt’altro che alla felicità degli uomini o all’infelicità. Quando io vi offendo in qualunque modo e con qual si sia mezzo, io non me n’avveggo, se non rarissime volte: come, ordinariamente, se io vi diletto o vi benefico, io non lo so; e non ho fatto, come credete voi, quelle tali cose, o non fo quelle tali azioni, per dilettarvi o giovarvi. E finalmente, se anche mi avvenisse di estinguere tutta la vostra specie, io non me ne avvedrei.
We found out that the executioners were given a countdown but that for some unexplained reason they had decided in advance that they would all fire at the penultimate number.
Five. Four. Three.
And on the count of two they opened fire.
I left the pen on the southern edge of the western table in your northern room in the house.