Much of the really serious trouble in the world gets going with a sense of humiliation.

Much of the really serious trouble in the world gets going with a sense of humiliation.

Though debts are condemned in the financial world, the world of friendship and love may perversely depend on well-managed debts.

Our sadness won’t be of the searing kind but more like a blend of joy and melancholy: joy at the perfection we see before us, melancholy at an awareness of how seldom we are sufficiently blessed to encounter anything of its kind. The flawless object throws into perspective the mediocrity that surrounds it. We are reminded of the way we would wish things always to be and of how incomplete our lives remain.

The moment we cry in a film is not when things are sad but when they turn out to be more beautiful than we expected them to be.

People who hold important positions in society are commonly labelled "somebodies," and their inverse "nobodies"-both of which are, of course, nonsensical descriptors, for we are all, by necessity, individuals with distinct identities and comparable claims on existence. Such words are nevertheless an apt vehicle for conveying the disparate treatment accorded to different groups. Those without status are all but invisible: they are treated brusquely by others, their complexities trampled upon and their singularities ignored.

Paying tax should be framed as a glorious civic duty worthy of gratitude - not a punishment for making money.