No great artist ever sees things as they really are. If he did, he would cease to be an artist. The Decay of Lying

“In order to change an existing imagined order, we must first believe in an alternative imagined order.” Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

“For certainly old age has a great sense of calm and freedom; when the passions relax their hold, then, as Sophocles says, we are freed from the grasp not of one mad master only, but of many. The truth is, Socrates, that these regrets, and also the complaints about relations, are to be attributed to the same cause, which is not old age, but men’s characters and tempers; for he who is of a calm and happy nature will hardly feel the pressure of age, but to him who is of an opposite disposition youth and age are equally a burden.” Republic

As a goose is not frightened by cackling nor a sheep by bleating, so let not the clamour of a senseless multitude alarm you. Fragment