People should not expect the state to protect them from fraudsters. If we do, we get into the habit of neglecting our own powers of intellectual discernment.

You don't choose what you believe moment to moment, but choices you have made do shape what you come to believe.

I never thought I was cut out for a life of crime. I even felt guilty when I accidentally stole a Subbuteo catalogue, thinking it was free. But everyone has an inner rebel, and mine has finally found a natural outlet. My crime of choice is that, with a heart as cold as ice and no care for what society thinks, I steal wireless computer network time.

If there is an art of living, it is not something that can be taught timelessly. We have lessons to learn from Aristotle et al, for sure, but not if we simply uproot them from their epoch and stamp them into 21st-century soil.

Life is full of what-ifs, many of which could easily have been realities, had just a few things been different.

In my experience, those who make the biggest fuss about not spending much at Christmas are generally the ones who buy what they want and eat where they want 12 months a year.

Stress means something different if it is the result of rewarding work rather than struggling to keep the family out of debt.