Respect for ourselves guides our morals; respect for others guides our manners - Laurence Sterne

Si un historiógrafo pudiera conducir su historia como un mulero conduce a su mula, — en línea recta y siempre hacia adelante: — por ejemplo, desde Roma hasta Loreto sin volver la cabeza ni una sola vez en todo el trayecto, ni a derecha ni a izquierda, — podría aventurarse a predecirles a ustedes, con un margen de error de una hora, cuándo iba a llegar al término de su viaje; — pero eso, moralmente hablando, es imposible. Porque si es un hombre con un mínimo de espíritu, se encontrará en la obligación, durante su marcha, de desviarse cincuenta veces de la línea recta para unirse a este o a aquel grupo, y de ninguna manera lo podrá evitar. Se le ofrecerán vistas y perspectivas que perpetuamente reclamarán su atención; y le será tan imposible no detenerse a mirarlas como volar; tendrá, además, diversos:
Relatos que compaginar:
Anécdotas que recopilar:
Inscripciones que descifrar:
Historias que trenzar:
Tradiciones que investigar:
Personajes que visitar.

I wish either my father or my mother, or indeed both of them, as they were in duty both equally bound to it, had minded what they were about when they begot me; had they duly considered how much depended upon what they were then doing; that not only the production of a rational Being was concerned in it, but that possibly the happy formation and temperature of his body, perhaps his genius and the very cast of his mind;—and, for aught they knew to the contrary, even the fortunes of his whole house might take their turn from the humours and dispositions which were then uppermost: Had they duly weighed and considered all this, and proceeded accordingly, I am verily persuaded I should have made a quite different figure in the world, from that, in which the reader is likely to see me.

When a man is discontented with himself, it has one advantage however, that it puts him into an excellent frame of mind for making a bargain.