Famous quotes containing the words external and/or affairs:
“The ideal of brotherhood of man, the building of the Just City, is one that cannot be discarded without lifelong feelings of disappointment and loss. But, if we are to live in the real world, discard it we must. Its very nobility makes the results of its breakdown doubly horrifying, and it breaks down, as it always will, not by some external agency but because it cannot work.”
—Kingsley Amis (1922–1995)
“As an example of just how useless these philosophers are for any practice in life there is Socrates himself, the one and only wise man, according to the Delphic Oracle. Whenever he tried to do anything in public he had to break off amid general laughter. While he was philosophizing about clouds and ideas, measuring a flea’s foot and marveling at a midge’s humming, he learned nothing about the affairs of ordinary life.”
—Desiderius Erasmus (c. 1466–1536)