Billie Jean King and Ernie Banks

"The main thing is to care. Care very hard, even if it is only a game you are playing." -- Billie Jean King

Ernie Banks, the great Chicago Cubs Hall of Famer, said this recently, "You have to care, but not too much." I think they are both right, and resolving the conflict isn't simply a matter of moderation in all things. What is required is the wisdom to know how to express your passion for each aspect of life, and how far.

Oscar Wilde

Death must be so beautiful. To lie in the soft brown earth, with the grasses waving above one's head, and listen to silence. To have no yesterday, and no tomorrow. To forget time, to forgive life, to be at peace. -Oscar Wilde, writer (1854-1900)

I really wonder if Wilde was speaking tongue in cheek here. In any case, this isn't what death is like.

Aeschylus

"It is a profitable thing, if one is wise, to seem foolish." -- Aeschylus

This may be a useful ploy sometimes, but it is a foolish as a general principle.

Pythagoras, mathematician

"Above all things, reverence yourself." -- Pythagoras

It is true that I am made in the image of God and so should be revered, but certainly not above all things.

Epictetus, philosopher

Only the educated are free. -Epictetus, philosopher (c. 60-120)

If we take educated to mean what we usually do today, this isn't true. "The truth shall set you free," but being educated these days doesn't necessarily result in knowing the truth. But one can learn the truth that sets him free without ever going to school.

Seneca

"Difficulties strengthen the mind, as well as labor does the body." -- Seneca

As with physical labor, how one approaches difficulties impacts their effects on the mind.

Salman Rushdie, writer

What is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist. -Salman Rushdie, writer (b. 1947)

The bounds for freedom of expression are set by truth, not by offense given. This principle is even enshrined in common law.