“Nothing really matters except the answer to the burning question, “Am I going to live or shall I vanish like a bubble?” What is the aim and issue of all this strife and suffering?
(Bronislaw Malinowski, 1884 – 1942)
John Lentell
7th February, 1969
Saturday’s Piece
“I had endured through watches of the dark
The abashless inquisition of each star.”
(Francis Thompson, 1859 – 1907)
John Lentell
6th February, 1969
Friday’s Piece
“No Government can be long secure without a formidable opposition.”
(Benjamin Disraeli, 1804 – 1881)
John Lentell
5th February, 1969
Thursday’s Piece
“Of all the cants which are canted in this canting world – though the cant of hypocrites may be the worst – the cant of criticism is the most tormenting!”
(Laurence Sterne, 1713 – 1768)
John Lentell
4th February, 1969
Wednesday’s Piece
Gives not the hawthorn-bush a sweeter shade
To shepherds looking on their silly sheep,
Than doth a rich embroider’d canopy
To kings that fear their subjects’ treachery?
(William Shakespeare, 1564 – 1616)
John Lentell
3rd February, 1969
Tuesday’s Piece
I think that non-citizens should keep their noses out of Rhodesian Front politics, Centre Party politics – out of politics altogether. But I am also of the opinion that in our peculiar circumstances loyalty is divided when so-called Rhodesians have cash or other assets (nest-eggs!) in South Africa, Switzerland, London, Hong Kong or where-have-you. Sorry to harp on this but I feel strongly about it.
John Lentell
2nd February, 1969
Monday’s Piece
“Were it not for imagination, Sir, a man would be as happy in the arms of a chambermaid as of a Duchess.”
(Samuel Johnson, 1709 – 1784)
John Lentell
1st February, 1969
Sunday’s Piece
“Ay, now the plot thickens very much upon us.”
(George Villiers, 2nd Duke of Buckingham, 1628 – 1687)
John Lentell
31st January, 1969
Saturday’s Piece
“The humblest citizen of all the land, when clad in the armour of a righteous cause, is stronger than all the hosts of error.”
(William Bryan, 1860 – 1925)
John Lentell
30th January, 1969
Friday’s Piece
“Ils ne se servent de la pensée que pour autoriser leurs injustices et n’emploient les paroles que pour déguiser leurs pensées.”
(Men use thought only to justify their wrongdoings, and speech only to conceal their thoughts.)
(Voltaire, 1694 – 1778)
John Lentell
29th January, 1969
Thursday’s Piece
“Let us consider the reason for the case. For nothing is law that is not reason.”
(John Powell)
John Lentell
28th January, 1969
Wednesday’s Piece
“And that old common arbitrator, time,
Will one day end it.”
(William Shakespeare, 1564 – 1616)
John Lentell
27th January, 1969
Tuesday’s Piece
“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”
(George Bernard Shaw, 1856 – 1950)
John Lentell
26th January, 1969
Monday’s Piece
“Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.
(Ralph Wardo Emerson, 1803 – 1882)
John Lentell
25th January, 1969
Sunday’s Piece
“For how can you compete,
Being honour bred, with one
Who, were it proved he lies,
Were neither shamed in his own
Nor in his neighbours’ eyes?”
(Yeats, 1865 – 1939)
John Lentell
24th January, 1969
Saturday’s Piece
“He drew a circle that shut me out:
Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.
But Love and I had the wit to win:
We drew a circle that took him in!”
(From ‘The Shoes of Happiness, and Other Poems’ by Edwin Markham, 1852 – 1940)
John Lentell
23rd January, 1969
Friday’s Piece
“That man’s the true Conservative
Who lops the moulder’d branch away.”
(Alfred Tennyson, 1809 – 1892)
John Lentell
22nd January, 1969
Thursday’s Piece
Boo hoo! Nobody has sent either me or my wife a diary for 1969 and we are already getting our dates mixed up!
John Lentell
21st January, 1969
Wednesday’s Piece
“A revolting woman simpered up to me and said, ‘I hear you are writing a book. Won’t you please bring me into it.’ To get rid of her, I promised I would. This paragraph shows that I keep my promises.”
(From ‘Go East, Old Man’ by Vernon Bartlett, 1894 – 1983)
John Lentell
20th January, 1969
Tuesday’s Piece
Crisis and conflict seem to bring out the worst or best in a man.
John Lentell
19th January, 1969
Lentell Soup 