James Richardson Quotes

To me the great divide is between the talkative and the quiet. Do they just say everything that’s on their minds, even before it’s on their minds? Sometimes I think I could just turn up my head like a walkman so what’s going on there could be heard by others. But there would still be a difference. For inside the head they are talking to people like them, and I am talking to someone like me: he is quiet and doesn’t much like being talked at; he can’t conceal how easily he gets bored.

The drives were nature’s first provision: thinking was added later, to get us around the world’s obstacles to them.

There are crimes I don’t commit mainly because I don’t want to find out I could.

To think yourself incapable of crime is one failure of the imagination. To think yourself capable of all crimes is another.

Often you only have to ask What would I do if I were not afraid?

Only the dead have discovered what they cannot live without.

Greater than the temptations of beauty are those of method.

The first abuse of power is not realizing that you have it.

Think of all the smart people made stupid by flaws of character. The finest watch isn’t fine long when used as a hammer.

Those who are too slow to be intelligent deserve our patience, those who are too quick, our pity.

So many times I’ve made myself stupid with the fear of being outsmarted.

A belief is a question we have put aside so we can get on with what we believe we have to do.

Books serve us simply by opening a window on all we wanted to say and feel and think about. We may not even notice that they have not said it themselves till we go back to them years later and do not find what we loved in them. You cannot keep the view by taking the window with you.

What I’m not changes more than what I am.

The great consolation of righteousness is never having to worry whether you’re a bore.