The Saunterer

Peter Singer on why the rich should give most of their fortunes to social causes

    As Peter Singer tells it,

    A few years ago, an African-American cabdriver taking me to the Inter-American Development Bank in Washington asked me if I worked at the bank. I told him I did not but was speaking at a conference on development and aid. He then assumed that I was an economist, but when I said no, my training was in philosophy, he asked me if I thought the U.S. should give foreign aid. When I answered affirmatively, he replied that the government shouldn’t tax people in order to give their money to others. That, he thought, was robbery. When I asked if he believed that the rich should voluntarily donate some of what they earn to the poor, he said that if someone had worked for his money, he wasn’t going to tell him what to do with it.

    At that point we reached our destination. Had the journey continued, I might have tried to persuade him that people can earn large amounts only when they live under favorable social circumstances, and that they don’t create those circumstances by themselves. I could have quoted Warren Buffett’s acknowledgment that society is responsible for much of his wealth. “If you stick me down in the middle of Bangladesh or Peru,” he said, “you’ll find out how much this talent is going to produce in the wrong kind of soil.”

    (Quoted from “What Should a Billionaire Give -– and What Should You?” by Peter Singer. The New York Times, December 17, 2006.)
    For a brief biography of Peter Singer, click here. For images of or relating to Peter Singer, click here.

George Bernard Shaw on happiness as a measure of truth

    This is how he puts it:

    The fact that a believer is happier than a sceptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one. The happiness of credulity is a cheap and dangerous quality.

    (Quoted from page cxvi of Androcles and the Lion; Overruled; Pygmalion, by Bernard Shaw. Brentano’s, 1923.)
    For a brief biography of George Bernard Shaw, click here. For images of or relating to George Bernard Shaw, click here.

Diane Keaton on how books and audiobooks work on us differently

    Written words and spoken words register in different parts of the brain, with consequences Diane Keaton notes:

    I love to listen to audiobooks, particularly on road trips. Last Christmas, driving from L.A. to San Francisco, I listened to Patti Smith’s “Just Kids.” It was a revelation. Or rather, she was. What is it about her voice? The way she uses her words and makes them sing? Her pace? Slow. Captivating. Patti and I are the same age. We both lived in New York during those early years of our careers. Yet without her book on tape I could never have imagined New York or the people she knew, or her beautiful mind. It was the sound of her voice coming through loud and clear, but quiet and compelling, inside the front seat of my black car. When I was writing “Let’s Just Say It Wasn’t Pretty,” I read paragraphs, then sections, then the entire pieces out loud over and over and over and over again and again. It helped me understand the book’s structure. It gave me a clearer sense of what I was trying to say. Silence is not my friend, but hearing is.

    (Quoted from page 8 of The New York Times Book Review, May 4, 2014.)
    For a brief biography of Diane Keaton, click here. For images of or relating to Diane Keaton, click here.

George Orwell on fair play in sports

    It’s a dream. George Orwell:

    Serious sport has nothing to do with fair play. It is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard of all rules and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence: in other words it is war minus the shooting.

    (Quoted from "Fair Play: Its Origins and Meanings in Sport and Society," by Roland Renson; page 78 in Lectures for the XXIst Century. Leuven University Press, 2008.)
    For a brief biography of George Orwell, click here. For images of or relating to George Orwell, click here.
    For a work biography of Roland Renson, click here. For images of or relating to Roland Renson, click here.

Lewis Mumford on architecture

    We have only ourselves to blame if. . . .

    Architecture, like government, is about as good as a community deserves. The shell that we create for ourselves marks our spiritual development as plainly as that of a snail denotes its species. If sometimes architecture becomes frozen music, we have ourselves to thank when it is a pompous blare of meaningless sounds.

    (Quoted from page 169 of American Eden, by Wade Graham. HarperCollins, 2011.)
    For a brief biography of Lewis Mumford, click here. For images of or relating Lewis Mumford, click here.
    For a brief work biography of Wade Graham, click here.  

The 14th Dalai Lama on love and compassion

    Want lasting happiness? Follow the 14th Dalai Lama’s method:

    Compassion is one of the principal things that makes our lives meaningful. It is the source of all lasting happiness and joy. And it is the foundation of a good heart, the desire to help others. Through kindness, through affection, through honesty, through truth and justice toward everyone else, we also ensure our own benefit.
    The necessity of love and compassion is the real basis of my religion, my simple faith. To put them into practice within a secular framework we don’t need a temple, church, or other building, nor any complicated philosophy. Our own heart and minds are where we work, while the only doctrine we need is compassion. So long as we put this into practice in our daily lives, so long as we have compassion for others and conduct ourselves with restraint out of a sense of responsibility, there is no doubt we will be happy.

    (Quoted from page 44 of One Can Make a Difference, by Ingrid Newkirk. Adams Media, 2008.)
    For a brief biography of the 14th Dalai Lama, click here. For images of or relating to the 14th Dalai Lama, click here.
    For a brief biography of Ingrid Newkirk (who is making a great difference), click here. For images of or relating to Ingrid Newkirk, click here.

André Gide on how making makes the maker

André Gide’s idea:

    I want to suggest . . . the influence of the book upon the one who is writing it, and during that very writing. As the book issues from us it changes us, modifying the course of our life. . . . Our acts exercise a retroaction upon us. “Our deeds act upon us as much as we act upon them,” said George Eliot.

    (Quoted from page 175 of The Life of the Creative Spirit, by H. Charles Romesburg. Xlibris, 2001.)
    For a brief biography of André Gide, click here. For images of or relating André Gide, click here.

Gustav Mahler on composing music

    Gustav Mahler put composing in a simile:

    Composing is like playing with bricks, continually making new buildings from the same old stones.

    Composing your life is different. The more education you have, the more you have of life's building blocks. And so the more your possibilities.

    (Quoted from page 350 of The Life of the Creative Spirit, by H. Charles Romesburg. Xlibris, 2001.)
    For a brief biography of Gustav Mahler, click here. For images of or relating Gustav Mahler, click here.

 

 

Mark Sheinkman on how personal computers waste lives

    Personal computers were supposed to up our productivity. For many they lower it, inviting us to play, postponing serious work. If Shakespeare had had one, he might not have gotten around to writing all the poems and plays. Artist Mark Sheinkman tells what he does when getting ready to start a new painting:

    I clear off the work table and lie down and close my eyes. Or I walk the dog. I just take a pause. The unspoken subtext here is procrastination. One thing I almost never do is bring my computer to the studio. It’s the most efficient procrastination device ever invented.

    (Quoted from page 76 of ARTnews, June 2014.)
    For a brief biography of Mark Sheinkman, click here. For images of or relating to Mark Sheinkman, click here.

William Blake on joy

    A good poem to memorize and silently recite while waiting at the “bus stops” in life, a reminder of a great truth most tend to forget:

He who binds to himself a joy
Does the winged life destroy;
But he who kisses the joy as it flies
Lives in eternity's sun rise.

    (Quoted from page 71 of William Blake: Selected Poetry. Bloomsbury Publishing, 1994.)
    For a brief biography of William Blake, click here. For images of or relating to William Blake, click here.