It is undoubtedly the case that the practice of the virtues makes one happier. We’ve somewhat lost sight of that essential truth, now that we, as a society, admire selfishness and vanity so much.
Isabel smiled. She liked a conversation that went in odd directions; she liked the idea of playfulness in speech. People could be so depressingly literal. Jamie
Isabel had firm views on moral proximity and the obligations it created. WE cannot choose the situations in which we become involved in this life; we are caught up in them whether we like it or not. I...
IF EITHER OF THEM had felt tetchy, the concert put them both in a good mood.
I think that the measure of whether a life has been a good one is how much love there has been in that life--love both given and received.
I sometimes find myself thinking: wouldn’t it be far less complicated to have a job like that? To sell things? To order cheese and salamis and all the rest and not worry about what we should do and ho...
I have the luxury, I suppose, of being self-employed. But I know what it’s like to apply for jobs.
How sorry she felt for white people, who couldn’t do any of this, and who were always dashing around and worrying themselves over things that were going to happen anyway. What use was it having all th...
How remarkable it was, she thought, that we managed to anchor ourselves at all in this world, and that we did so by giving ourselves names and linking those names with places and other people.
How many of us dig our own graves, thought William. We dig them with vigour and determination, unaware of the implications, but with all the conviction of those who do not really know what they are do...
Her friend who treated her maid badly was not a wicked person. She behaved well towards her family...but when it came to her maid...she seemed to have little concern for her feelings. It occurred to M...
Her eyes went to the shelves that stretched up to within a few inches of the ceiling. All four walls were covered; piles of books stood here and there, teetering, vulnerable, she judged, to the slight...
He would sit down and consider the situation carefully. Not only did this help to identify the solution to the problem, but it also gave him the opportunity to remind himself that things were not real...
He will be a small man inside, said Mma Ramotswe. He will feel small and unimportant. That is why he needs to put ladies down, Mma. Men who are big inside never feel the need to do that.
He went to the cupboard where he had stored Eddie’s remaining possessions. There was, as he had remembered, a pair of jeans, and he took these out and unfolded them. They were distressed, but no more...
He tilted his hat back slightly, so that he could see the sky more clearly. It was so empty, so dizzying in its height, so unconcerned by the man who was crossing a field beneath it, and thinking as h...
He shows the most amazing brass neck, she said.
Gratitude was a lost art, she felt. People accepted things, took them as their right, and had forgotten how to give proper thanks.
Giving gave every bit as much pleasure as receiving—if not more, and denying that pleasure to others could be churlish.
French philosophers had been able to admire Mao and his works because they did not have to live in China at the time.