According to Montaigne, it was the oppressive notion that we had complete mental control over our bodies, and the horror of departing from this portrait of normality, that had left the man unable to perform sexually.

It is this idea 'decency' should be attached to wealth -and 'indecency'' to poverty - that forms the core of one strand of skeptical complaint against the modern status-ideal. Why should failure to make money be taken as a sign of an unconditionally flawed human being rather than of a fiasco in one particular area if the far larger, more multifaceted, project of leading a good life? Why should both wealth and poverty be read as the predominant guides to an individual's morals ?

Distress at losing an object can be as much a frustration at the intellectual mystery of the disappearance as about the loss itself.

There is a longing for a return to a time without the need for choices, free of the regret at the inevitable loss that all choice (however wonderful) has entailed.

You need a long hard day's work to reveal the logic of the craving for very bad tv and alcohol.

The study of maps and the perusal of travel books aroused in me a secret fascination that was at times almost irresistible.

True love is a lack of desire to check one's smartphone in another's presence.