what is a cynic?
knows the price of everything
value of nothing
sentimentalist?
doesn’t know market price of
any single thing
Adapted from this exchange:
CECIL GRAHAM: What is a cynic? [Sitting on the back of the sofa.]
LORD DARLINGTON: A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.
CECIL GRAHAM: And a sentimentalist, my dear Darlington, is a man who sees an absurd value in everything, and doesn’t know the market price of any single thing.
In the Oscar Wilde play, Lady Windermere’s Fan, Act III, ed. Isobel Murray (New York: Dover Publications, 1997).
In the old TV show, Yes, Prime Minister, in a discussion on rescuing a British Citizen caught in a foreign country.
Sir Humphrey Appleby, the career government man tells the Prime Minister that, “Well, I understand that tomorrow the Foreign Secretary will deliver a strong note of protest.”
Prime Minister Jim Hacker replies that the response seems “Very heartless.”
To which Sir Humphrey replies, “It’s safer to be heartless than mindless. History is the triumph of the heartless over the mindless.”
Such thoughts as I drive east into the sun rising out of the Atlantic Ocean.
Where are we today?
I am reminded of the great Chicago chronicler Mike Royko who once said something like this about being a fan of the Chicago Cubs.
An optimist sees that the glass is half full.
A pessimist sees that the glass is half empty.
A Cub fan wonders, when does it tip over?
No Haiku For You 