On the other side, there's Barry Goldwater's "moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue..." But probably even he, when not being rhetorical for poliltical purposes, would probably have admitted that some balance between means and ends is required, both to achieve anything and just to get by.
I suspect that your friend Julian, in his perceptive comment on you as a flaneur, meant 'coiffed' rather than 'quaffed', though if he was relying on voice recognition software, a spell-checker would not have caught the difference...
Aristotle's advice of temperance in most matters is sensible. Mortimer Adler - the reader of Aristotle and perhaps most famous for writing How to Read a Book - drew a distinction between the "limited goods" of liberty and equality and the "unlimited" good of justice. There is a such thing as too much liberty and too much equality - we can have more than is good for us. But there's no such thing as too much justice. We should have as much liberty and as much equality as justice allows.
In Quan Barry's Buddism-based novel, "When I'm Gone, Look For Me in the East," there is a line about self-reliance that reads: When the only hope is a boat and there is no boat, I will be the boat. This sounds a little more inspirational than: When the only hope is a boat and there is no boat, I will ask the neighbour's kid for help. But as we say in your summer place, Philip: any port in a storm.
On the other side, there's Barry Goldwater's "moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue..." But probably even he, when not being rhetorical for poliltical purposes, would probably have admitted that some balance between means and ends is required, both to achieve anything and just to get by.
I suspect that your friend Julian, in his perceptive comment on you as a flaneur, meant 'coiffed' rather than 'quaffed', though if he was relying on voice recognition software, a spell-checker would not have caught the difference...
Perhaps he meant quaffed as stated.
Aristotle's advice of temperance in most matters is sensible. Mortimer Adler - the reader of Aristotle and perhaps most famous for writing How to Read a Book - drew a distinction between the "limited goods" of liberty and equality and the "unlimited" good of justice. There is a such thing as too much liberty and too much equality - we can have more than is good for us. But there's no such thing as too much justice. We should have as much liberty and as much equality as justice allows.
Belated birthday wishes.
In Quan Barry's Buddism-based novel, "When I'm Gone, Look For Me in the East," there is a line about self-reliance that reads: When the only hope is a boat and there is no boat, I will be the boat. This sounds a little more inspirational than: When the only hope is a boat and there is no boat, I will ask the neighbour's kid for help. But as we say in your summer place, Philip: any port in a storm.
Wishing you a happy and healthy Birthday, infused with contentment, Philip ... with even better years to come.