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Nanrei Kobori, late Abbot of the Temple of the Shining Dragon, a Buddhist sanctuary in Kyoto, said to us God is an invention of Man. So the nature of God is only a shallow mystery. The deep mystery is the nature of Man.
“A slave, Marcus Cato said, should be working when he is not sleeping. It does not matter whether his work is needed or not, he must work, because work in itself is good – for slaves at least. This sentiment still survives, and it has piled up mountains of useless drudgery”
― Down and Out in Paris and London
― Down and Out in Paris and London
“There's really no such thing as the 'voiceless'. There are only the deliberately silenced, or the preferably unheard.”
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“A rich man who happens to be intellectually honest, if he is questioned about the improvement of working conditions, usually says something like this:
‘We know that poverty is unpleasant; in fact, since it is so remote, we rather enjoy harrowing ourselves with the thought of its unpleasantness. But don’t expect us to do anything about it. […] The present state of affairs suits us, and we are not going to take the risk of setting you free, even by an extra hour a day. So, dear brothers, since evidently you must sweat to pay for our trips to Italy, sweat and be damned to you”
― Down and Out in Paris and London & the Road to Wigan Pier
‘We know that poverty is unpleasant; in fact, since it is so remote, we rather enjoy harrowing ourselves with the thought of its unpleasantness. But don’t expect us to do anything about it. […] The present state of affairs suits us, and we are not going to take the risk of setting you free, even by an extra hour a day. So, dear brothers, since evidently you must sweat to pay for our trips to Italy, sweat and be damned to you”
― Down and Out in Paris and London & the Road to Wigan Pier
“This was the English passion, not for self-improvement or culture or wit, but for DIY, Do It Yourself, for bigger and better houses with more mod cons, the painstaking accumulation of comfort and, with it, status - the concrete display of earned cash.”
― The Buddha of Suburbia
― The Buddha of Suburbia
“People are wrong when they think that an unemployed man only worries about losing his wages; on the contrary, an illiterate man, with the work habit in his bones, needs work even more than he needs money. An educated man can put up with enforced idleness, which is one of the worst evils of poverty. But a man like Paddy, with no means of filling up time, is as miserable out of work as a dog on the chain. That is why it is such nonsense to pretend that those who have 'come down in the world' are to be pitied above all others.
The man who really merits pity is the man who has been down from the start,
and faces poverty with a blank, resourceless mind.”
― Down and Out in Paris and London
The man who really merits pity is the man who has been down from the start,
and faces poverty with a blank, resourceless mind.”
― Down and Out in Paris and London
Rubaiat’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Rubaiat’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
1,170 books
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52 friends
2,149 books
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271 books
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200 books
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189 books
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266 books
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632 friends
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425 books
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80 friends
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