As Christopher Marlowe’s Faust learned the hard way, wishing for a moment of bliss to say “the same” indefinitely is guaranteed to procure indefinite… - Zygmunt Bauman

Our vulnerability [to ressentiment], is unavoidable (and probably incurable) in a kind of society in which relative equality of political and other rights and formally acknowledged social equality go hand in hand with enormous differences in genuine power, possessions and education; a society in which everyone “has the right” to consider himself equal to everybody else, while in fact being unequal to them.

Marcus Aurelius appoints personal character and conscience the ultimate refuge of happiness-seekers: the only place where dreams of happiness, doomed to die childless and intestate anywhere else, are not bound to be frustrated.

[Referring to his father] In fact, we almost lost our lives because of his honesty. In 1939, we were running away from Posnan as the Germans were invading - the town was almost on the German border. We took the last train east, but we were stopped at a station which was being bombed by the Germans. We should have run away from the station because that was the object of the bombing, but he wanted to find a ticket inspector to pay for our tickets.