Libra Quotes

The sin which is unpardonable is knowingly and wilfully to reject truth, to fear knowledge lest that knowledge pander not to thy prejudices.

Facts are lonely things

Some nights I need to be held. Tonight I'm a listener. So nice to lie in rumpled sheets and listen. Cover me with words.

There's always more to it. This is what history consists of. It is the sum total of the things they aren't telling us.

A fact is innocent until someone wants it; then it become intelligence.

That which we fear to touch is often the very fabric of our salvation.

Two thousand years ago the night sky looked completely different, and so when you get right down to it, the Greek conceptions of star signs as related to birth dates are grossly inaccurate for today's day and age. It's called the Line of Procession: back then the sun didn't set in Taurus, but in Gemini. A September 24 birthday didn't mean you were a Libra, but a Virgo. And there was a thirteenth zodiac constellation, Ophiuchus the Serpent Bearer, which rose between Sagittarius and Scorpio for only four days. The reason it's all off kilter? The earth's axis wobbles. Life isn't nearly as stable as we want it to be.

The less important you are in an office, the more they expect the happy smile.

That clean but lonely feeling when there are no other cars. The traffic lights changing just for you.

Archbishop James Usher (1580-1656) published Annales Veteris et Novi Testaments in 1654, which suggested that the Heaven and the Earth were created in 4004 B.C. One of his aides took the calculation further, and was able to announce triumphantly that the Earth was created on Sunday the 21st of October, 4004 B.C., at exactly 9:00 A.M., because God liked to get work done early in the morning while he was feeling fresh. This too was incorrect. By almost a quarter of an hour. The whole business with the fossilized dinosaur skeletons was a joke the paleontologists haven't seen yet. This proves two things: Firstly, that God moves in extremely mysterious, not to say, circuitous ways. God does not play dice with the universe; He plays an ineffable game of His own devising, which might be compared, from the perspective of any of the other players, [ie., everybody.] to being involved in an obscure and complex version of poker in a pitch-dark room, with blank cards, for infinite stakes, with a Dealer who won't tell you the rules, and who smiles all the time. Secondly, the Earth's a Libra.

God made big people. And God made little people. But Colt made the .45 to even things up.

There is a world inside the world.

The truth of the world is exhausting.

Some people don't believe in God but they color eggs at Easter just to change the pattern of their days.

Maybe what has to happen is that the individual must allow himself to be swept along, must find himself in the stream of no-choice, the single direction. This is what makes things inevitable. You use the restrictions and penalties they invent to make yourself stronger. History means to merge. The purpose of history is to climb out of your own skin.

I didn’t realize I actually had post-traumatic stress disorder at the time, but why would I think I had that? Anyway, how would I know which was post-traumatic stress, which is addiction, which is bipolar, which is Libra?

We lead more interesting lives than we think. We are characters in plots, without the compression and numinous sheen. Our lives, examined carefully in all their affinities and links, abound with suggestive meaning, with themes and involute turnings we have not allowed ourselves to see completely.

Soy rubia. Rubísima. Soy tan rubia que me dicen: "Mona, no es sino que aletee ese pelo sobre mi cara y verá que me libra de esta sombra que me acosa". No era sombra sino muerte lo que le cruzaba la cara y me dio miedo perder mi brillo.

If we are on the outside, we assume a conspiracy is the perfect working scheme. Silent nameless men with unadorned hearts. A conspiracy is everything that ordinary life is not. It's the inside game, cold, sure, undistracted, forever closed off to us. We are the flawed ones, the innocents, trying to make some rough sense of the daily jostle. Conspirators have a logic and daring beyond our reach. All conspiracies are the same taut story of men who find coherence in some criminal act.

A shrewd person would one day start a religion based on coincidence, if he hasn't already, and make a million.

a Libra. Balanced. Diplomatic. Even-tempered.

I’ll tell you what it means, these orbiting sensors that can hear us in our beds. It means the end of loyalty. The more complex the systems, the less conviction in people. Conviction will be drained out of us. Devices will drain us, make us vague and pliant.

Secrets are an exalted state, almost a dream state. They're a way of arresting motion, stopping the world so we can see ourselves in it.

Listen" said Mather. "I understand what you're going through, I really do. An Indian woman in college. I understand. I'm a Marxist." Really," said Marie. "I'm a Libra.

MUST BE QUEER & TRANS FRIENDLY. MUST NOT BE AFRAID OF FIRE OR DOGS. NO LIBRAS, WE ALREADY HAVE ONE.

Devices make us pliant. We want to please them. The machine was his only hope of deliverance after what he'd done, what he'd loosed into the crowd. A way out of death.

The falling away of things we carry around with us, twilight and chimney smoke.

Think of two parallel lines. […] One is the life of Lee H. Oswald. One is the conspiracy to kill the President. What bridges the space between them? What makes a connection inevitable? There is a third line. It comes out of dreams, visions, intuitions, prayers, out of the deepest levels of the self. It's not generated by cause and effect like the other two lines. It's a line that cuts across causality, cuts across time. It has no history that we can recognize or understand. But it forces a connection. It puts a man on the path of his destiny.

If the world is where we hide from ourselves, what do we do when the world is no longer accessible? We invent a false name, invent a destiny, purchase a firearm through the mail.

Everything is supposed to be something. But it never is. That's the nature of existence.

Something about the time of year depressed him deeply. Overcast skies and cutting wind, leaves falling, dusk falling, dark too soon, night flying down before you are ready. It's a terror. It's a bareness of the soul. He hears the rustle of nuns. Here comes winter in the bone. We've set it loose on the land. There must be some song or poem, some folk magic we can use to ease this fear. Skelly Bone Pete. Here it is in the landscape and sky. We've set it loose. We've opened up the ground and here it is. He took Interstate 45 south. He didn't want them to kill Leon. He felt a saturating sense of death, a dread in the soft filling of his bones, the suckable part, approaching Galveston now.

[Lee Oswald] saw himself as part of something vast and sweeping. He was the product of a sweeping history, he and his mother, locked into a process, a system of money and property that diminished their human worth every day, as if by scientific law. The books made him part of something. Something led up to his presence in this room, in this particular skin, and something would follow. Men in small rooms. Men reading and waiting, struggling with secret and feverish ideas.

But idealists of course are unpredictable. They tend to be the ones who turn bitter overnight, deceived by lies they’ve told themselves.

Then they’re always trying to sell you something. Everything is based on forcing people to buy. If you can’t buy what they’re selling, you’re a zero in the system.

Signs and wonders, eh? Pity if there is nothing wonderful in signs, and significant in wonders! There's a clue somewhere; wait a bit; hist--hark! By Jove, I have it! Look, you Doubloon, your zodiac here is the life of man in one round chapter; and now I'll read it off, straight out of the book. Come, Almanack! To begin: there's Aries, or the Ram--lecherous dog, he begets us; then, Taurus, or the Bull--he bumps us the first thing; then Gemini, or the Twins--that is, Virtue and Vice; we try to reach Virtue, when lo! comes Cancer the Crab, and drags us back; and here, going from Virtue, Leo, a roaring Lion, lies in the path--he gives a few fierce bites and surly dabs with his paw; we escape, and hail Virgo, the Virgin! that's our first love; we marry and think to be happy for aye, when pop comes Libra, or Scales--happiness weighed and found wanting; and while we are very sad about that, Lord! how we suddenly jump, as Scorpio, or the Scorpion, stings us in rear; we are curing the wound, when whang comes the arrows all round; Sagittarius, or the Archer, is amusing himself. As we pluck out the shafts, stand aside! here's the battering-ram, Capricornus, or the Goat; full tilt, he comes rushing and headlong we are tossed; when Aquarius, or the the Waterbearer, pours out his whole deluge and drowns us; and, to wind up, with Pisces, or the Fishes, we sleep. There's a sermon now, writ in high heaven, and the sun goes through it every year, and yet comes out of it all alive and hearty.

A word is also a picture of a word.

Libra does. Winning an intellectual point or decision, however minor, major—or in the middle—is the reason for the Libra person’s very existence, symbolized by the Libra Scales, balanced in perfect harmony and justice.

He was a regulator first-class, which was another term for metalworker unskilled.

L'azione è verità, e la verità vacilla quando la guerra finisce e gli abitanti del villaggio sono liberi di tornare ai loro campi. Sopravviviamo, e siamo nuovamente sconfitti.

He has abandoned his life to understanding that moment in Dallas, the seven seconds that broke the back of the American century.

Our lives, examined carefully in all their affinities and links, abound with suggestive meaning, with themes and involute turnings we have not allowed ourselves to see completely.

I’m not looking to wear the white man out with my ability to suffer.

La libra de moneda escocesa contenía, desde los tiempos de Alejandro I hasta los de Robert Bruce, una libra de plata del mismo peso y ley que la libra esterlina inglesa.

Sol in Libra When the sun passeth through Libra, it is a good time for journeys. Beware of open enemies, war, and opposition.

There is a thing about the trust of a dog that makes up for a lot of heartache we take in this life.

Secondly, the Earth's a Libra.

LIBRA Today you must leave it alone. Walk away from it. Be strong, be sensible and above all else, be less bothered. Practise the art of ‘not caring’. There’s your solution.

When Lee has a certain look on his face, eyes kind of amused, mouth small and tight, he finds himself thinking of his father. He believes it is a look his father may have used. It feels like his father. A curious sensation, the look coming upon him, taking hold in an unmistakable way, and then his old man is here, eerie and forceful and whole, a meeting across worlds.

Quizá tenemos miedo a lo que viene después porque, en el fondo, una brizna de nuestro ser recuerda algo terrible. Algo que olvidamos cuando llenamos por primera vez de aire nuestros pulmones, y lloramos. Y si nada nos libra de la muerte, al menos que el amor nos salve de la vida.

The Agency was the one subject in his life that could never be exhausted. Central Intelligence. Beryl saw it as the best organized church in the Christian world, a mission to collect and store everything that everyone has ever said and then reduce it to a microdot and call it God.

Seeking young single roommate for 3br apartment upstairs, 6th floor. $700/mo. Must be queer & trans friendly. Must not be afraid of fire or dogs. No Libras, we already have one. Call Niko.

It was uncanny. You press a button and a man drops dead a hundred meters away. It seemed hollow and remote, falsifying everything. It was a trick of the lenses. The man is an accurate picture. Then he is upside down. Then he is right side up. You shoot at a series of images conveyed to you through a metal tube. The force of a death should be enormous but how can you know what kind of man you’ve killed or who was the braver and stronger if you have to peer through layers of glass that deliver the image but obscure the meaning of the act? War has a conscience or it’s ordinary murder.

There is enough mystery in the facts as we know them, enough of conspiracy, coincidence, loose ends, dead ends, multiple interpretations. There is no need […] to invent the grand and masterful scheme, the plot that reaches flawlessly in a dozen directions.

Sacrifice is a requirement. The world rests on a Libra's scale. For new saplings to root, others must fall. To walk towards one home, you must turn on another. To nurture the right hand, you must neglect the left.

Even as he printed the words, he imagined people reading them, people moved by his loneliness and disappointment, even by his wretched spelling, the childish mesh of his composition. Let them see the struggle and humiliation, the effort he had to exert to write a simple sentence. The pages were crowded, smudged, urgent, a true picture of his state of mind, of his rage and frustration, knowing a thing but not being able to record it properly.

Always the pain, the chaos of composition. He could not find order in the field of little symbols. They were in the hazy distance. He could not clearly see the picture that is called a word. A word is also a picture of a word. He saw spaces, incomplete features, and tried to guess at the rest. He made wild tries at phonetic spelling. But the language tricked him with its inconsistencies. He watched sentences deteriorate, powerless to make them right. The nature of things was to be elusive. Things slipped through his perceptions. He could not get a grip on the runaway world.

Firstly, that God moves in extremely mysterious, not to say, circuitous ways. God does not play dice with the universe; He plays an ineffable game of His own devising, which might be compared, from the perspective of any of the other players,* to being involved in an obscure and complex version of poker in a pitch-dark room, with blank cards, for infinite stakes, with a Dealer who won’t tell you the rules, and who smiles all the time. Secondly, the Earth’s a Libra.

Whatever you set your mind to, your personal total obsession, this is what kills you. Poetry kills you if you're a poet, and so on. People choose their death whether they know it or not.

Once you start a file, Delphine, it's just a matter of time before the material comes pouring in. Notes, lists, photos, rumors. Every bit and piece and whisper in the world that doesn't have a life until someone comes along to collect it. It's all been waiting just for you.

Spy planes, drone aircraft, satellites with cameras that can see from three hundred miles what you can see from a hundred feet. They see and they hear. Like ancient monks, you know, who recorded knowledge, wrote it painstakingly down. These systems collect and process. All the secret knowledge of the world.

Is he one of them now? Frustrated, stuck, self-watching, looking for a means of connection, a way to break out. After Oswald, men in America are no longer required to lead lives of quiet desperation. You apply for a credit card, buy a handgun, travel through cities, suburbs and shopping malls, anonymous, anonymous, looking for a chance to take a shot at the first puffy empty famous face, just to let people know there is someone out there who reads the papers.

It is the neon epic of Saturday night.

Tutto dovrebbe essere qualcosa. Ma non lo è mai. È la natura dell'esistenza.

La soledad es algo maravilloso (...), por dos motivos: primero porque le permite a un hombre estar consigo mismo; y segundo porque se libra de estar con los demás.

All conspiracies are the same taut story of men who find coherence in some criminal act. —Don DeLillo, Libra

A veces, tus propios pensamientos pueden matarte si no te libras de ellos.

Apuesto veinte mil libras a que daré la vuelta al mundo en ochenta días? ¿Aceptan, caballeros?

10 Todos mis huesos dirán: Jehová, ¿quién como tú, Que libras al afligido del más fuerte que él, Y al pobre y menesteroso del que le despoja?

The astrological prediction for Libra in the "Your Stars Today" column

La novela es ese gran combate que libra el escritor consigo mismo porque hay en ella todo un mundo, todo un universo en que se debaten juegos capitales del destino humano,

Je velice politovánihodné a nehodné vladaře, když páchá tento podvod, šidí své peníze, nazývá zlatem co není zlato a librou co není libra.

Mas em viagens, gratificações, processos, multas, elefante e despesas de toda a espécie, o meu homem já deixou mais de mil libras pelo caminho.

A notícia da herança me chegou certa noite quase simultaneamente com a aprovação do decreto que deu o voto às mulheres. A carta de um advogado caiu na caixa do correio e, quando a abri, descobri que ela [a tia] me havia deixado por toda a vida quinhentas libras anuais. Dos dois – o voto e o dinheiro – o dinheiro, devo admitir, pareceu-me infinitamente mais importante.

En tanto que nosotros hemos preferido siempre adaptar nuestra economía y tecnología a los seres humanos, no nuestros seres humanos a la economía y tecnología de otros. Importamos lo que no podemos fabricar; pero fabricamos e importamos sólo lo que podemos permitirnos. Y lo que podemos permitirnos está limitado, no sólo por las libras, marcos y dólares que poseemos, sino también, y principalmente... principalmente por nuestro deseo de ser felices, nuestra ambición de ser humanos.

Na Natureza nunca eu descobriria um contorno feio ou repetido! Nunca duas folhas de hera, que, na verdura ou recorte, se assemelhassem! Na Cidade, pelo contrário, cada casa repete servilmente a outra casa; todas as faces reproduzem a mesma indiferença ou a mesma inquietação; as ideias têm todas o mesmo valor, o mesmo cunho, a mesma forma, como as libras; e até o que há mais pessoal e íntimo, a Ilusão, é em todos idêntica, e todos a respiram, e todos se perdem nela como no mesmo nevoeiro... A "mesmice" - eis o horror das Cidades!

What was glimpsed in Aquarius—what was envisioned, believed in, prophesied, predicted, doubted, and forewarned—is made, in Pisces, manifest. Those solitary visions that, but a month ago, belonged only to the dreamer, will now acquire the form and substance of the real. We were of our own making, and we shall be our own end. And after Pisces? Out of the womb, the bloody birth. We do not follow: we cannot cross from last to first. Aries will not admit a collective point of view, and Taurus will not relinquish the subjective. Gemini's code is an exclusive one. Cancer seeks a source, Leo, a purpose, and Virgo, a design; but these are projects undertaken singly. Only in the zodiac's second act will we begin to show ourselves: in Libra, as a notion, in Scorpio, as a quality, and in Sagittarius, as a voice. In Capricorn we will gain memory, and in Aquarius, vision; it is only in Pisces, the last and oldest of the zodiacal signs, that we acquire a kind of selfhood, something whole. But the doubled fish of Pisces, that mirrored womb of self and self-awareness, is an ourobouros of mind—both the will of fate, and the fated will—and the house of self-undoing is a prison built by prisoners, airless, door-less, and mortared from within. These alterations come upon us irrevocably, as the hands of the clock-face come upon the hour.

Retirado en la paz de estos desiertos con pocos, pero doctos libros juntos, vivo en conversación con los difuntos, y escucho con mis ojos a los muertos. Si no siempre entendidos, siempre abiertos, o enmiendan, o fecundan mis asuntos; y en músicos callados contrapuntos al sueño de la vida andan despiertos. Las grandes almas que la muerte ausenta, de injurias de los años vengadora, libra, ¡oh gran don Joseph!, docta la imprenta. En fuga irrevocable huye la hora; pero aquella el mejor cálculo cuenta, que en la lección y estudios nos mejora.

La maggior parte degli uomini, Kamala, sono come foglia secca, che si libra e si rigira nell'aria e scende ondeggiando al suolo. Ma altri, pochi, sono come stelle fisse, che vanno per un loro corso preciso, e non c'è vento che li tocchi, hanno in se stessi la loro legge e il loro cammino.

Voglio dirti una cosa che non dovresti dimenticarti mai. Se qualcuno ti dà fastidio una volta e poi un'altra e un'altra e un'altra ancora, qualcuno con delle ambizioni, qualcuno avido di territorio, la prima regola da osservare è mirare in alto. In altre parole, al massimo livello. È Lassù che stanno perdendo il controllo della situazione. In altre parole, bisogna andare dritti al vertice. Bisogna fare fuori il numero uno. In altre parole, bisogna fare in modo che al vertice ci sia un uomo nuovo che capisca il messaggio e cambi politica. Se tagli la testa, la coda non si dimena più.

The Oswald shadings, the multiple images, the split perceptions—eye color, weapons caliber—these seem a foreboding of what is to come. The endless fact-rubble of the investigations. How many shots, how many gunmen, how many directions? Powerful events breed their own network of inconsistencies. The simple facts elude authentication. How many wounds on the President's body? What is the size and shape of the wounds? The multiple Oswald reappears. Isn't that him in a photograph of a crowd of people on the front steps of the Book Depository just as the shooting begins? A startling likeness, Branch concedes. He concedes everything. He questions everything, including the basic suppositions we make about our world of light and shadow, solid objects and ordinary sounds, and our ability to measure such things, to determine weight, mass and direction, to see things as they are, recall them clearly, be able to say what happened.

Secondly, the Earth’s a Libra. The astrological prediction for Libra in the ‘Your Stars Today’ column of the Tadfield Advertiser, on the day this history begins, read as follows:- LIBRA. 24 September–23 October. You may be feeling run down and always in the same old daily round. Home and family matters are highlighted and are hanging fire. Avoid unnecessary risks. A friend is important to you. Shelve major decisions until the way ahead seems clear. You may be vulnerable to a stomach upset today, so avoid salads. Help could come from an unexpected quarter. This was perfectly correct on every count except for the bit about the salads.

Një nga marifetet më të padëgjuara të grekërve ka qenë dhënia e ryshfeteve zyrtarëve të lartë në Stamboll për të nxjerrë një ferman që të ndalonte qarkullimin apo mbajtjen e librave shqip. U quajt një veprim i dënueshëm, madje edhe po të mbaje libra kaq të padëmshëm si gramatika ose aritmetika, po të ishin shkruar shqip.

Six point nine seconds of heat and light. Let’s call a meeting to analyze the blur. Let’s devote our lives to understanding this moment, separating the elements of each crowded second. We will build theories that gleam like jade idols, intriguing systems of assumption, four-faced, graceful. We will follow the bullet trajectories backwards to the lives that occupy the shadows, actual men who moan in their dreams. Elm Street. A woman wonders why she is sitting on the grass, bloodspray all around. Tenth Street. A witness leaves her shoes on the hood of a bleeding policeman’s car. A strangeness, Branch feels, that is almost holy. There is much here that is holy, an aberration in the heartland of the real.

Le trame possiedono una logica. C'è una tendenza, nelle trame, a evolvere in direzione della morte.

No quiero que te vayas.

One:

TIME TO SACRIFICE TAURUS This is the night of union when the stars scatter their rice over us. The sky is excited! Venus cannot stop singing the little songs she's making up, like birds in the first warm spring weather. The North Star can't quit looking over at Leo. Pisces is stirring milky dust from the ocean floor. Jupiter rides his horse near Saturn, "Old man, jump up behind me! The juice is coming back! Think of something happy to shout as we go. "Mars washes his bloody sword, puts it up, and begins building things. The Aquarian water jar fills, and the Virgin pours it generously. The Pleiades and Libra and Aries have no trembling in them anymore. Scorpio walks out looking for a lover, and so does Sagittarius! This is not crooked walking like the Crab. This is a holiday we've been waiting for. It is finally time to sacrifice Taurus and learn how the sky is a lens to look through. Listen to what's inside what I say. Shams will appear at dawn; then even night will change from its beloved animated darkness to a day within this ordinary sweet daylight.

Te lo doy, no para que recuerdes el tiempo, sino para que consigas olvidarlo de vez en cuando durante un momento y no malgastes todo tu aliento intentando conquistarlo. Porque ninguna batalla se ganas jamás, como él decía Ni tan siquiera se libra. Sólo el campo de batalla revela al hombre su propia locura y desesperación, y la victoria es ilusión de filósofos e idiotas.

Te lo doy, no para que recuerdes el tiempo, sino para que consigas olvidarlo de vez en cuando durante un momento y no malgastes todo tu aliento intentando conquistarlo. Porque ninguna batalla se ganas jamás, como él decía Ni tan siquiera se libra. Sólo el campo de batalla revela al hombre su propia locura y desesperación, y la victoria es ilusión de filósofos e idiotas.

A conspiracy is everything that ordinary life is not. It’s the inside game, cold, sure, undistracted, forever closed off to us. We are the flawed ones, the innocents, trying to make some rough sense of the daily jostle. Conspirators have a logic and a daring beyond our reach. All conspiracies are the same taut story of men who find coherence in some criminal act. —Don DeLillo, Libra

Pero permitidme al mismo tiempo recordaros que desde el año 1866 han funcionado en Inglaterra como mínimo dos colegios universitarios de mujeres; que a partir del año 1880 la ley ha autorizado a las mujeres casadas a ser dueñas de sus propios bienes y que en el año 1919 —es decir, hace ya nueve largos años— se le concedió el voto a la mujer. Os recordaré también que pronto hará diez años que la mayoría de las profesiones os están permitidas. Si reflexionáis sobre estos inmensos privilegios y el tiempo que hace que venís disfrutando de ellos, y sobre el hecho de que deben de haber actualmente unas dos mil mujeres capaces de ganar quinientas libras al año, admitiréis que la excusa de que os han faltado las oportunidades, la preparación, el estímulo, el tiempo y el dinero necesarios no os sirve.

-¿Cómo se sale de aqui? -Si tanta prisa tiene... Hay dos maneras, la permanente y la temporal. La permanente es por el tejado: un buen salto y se libra usted de toda esa bazofia para siempre. La salida temporal está por allí, al fondo, donde anda aquel atontado puño en alto al que se le caen los pantalones y hace el saludo revolucionario a todo el que pasa. Pero si sale por ahí, tarde o temprano volverá aquí.

Branch is stuck all right. He has abandoned his life to understanding that moment in Dallas, the seven seconds that broke the back of the American century. [...] There is also the Warren Report, of course, with its twenty-six accompanying volumes of testimony and exhibits, its millions of words. Branch thinks this is the megaton novel James Joyce would have written if he'd moved to Iowa City and lived to be a hundred.

Te lo ricordi com'era, sudare sotto le coperte, da bambini? La febbre è una cosa segreta. È come cadere in un buco dove nessuno può seguirti, ma non provi né paura né dolore perché non ti senti neanche te stesso. Io adoro raggomitolarmi nel sudore.

So should patients born under Libra and Gemini be deprived of treatment? You would say no, of course, and that would make you wiser than many in the medical profession: the CCSG trial found that aspirin was effective at preventing stroke and death in men, but not in women;30 as a result, women were undertreated for a decade, until further trials and overviews showed a benefit. That is just one of many subgroup analyses that have misled us in medicine, often incorrectly identifying subgroups of people who wouldn’t benefit from a treatment that was usually effective. So, for example, we thought the hormone-blocking drug tamoxifen was no good for treating breast cancer in women if they were younger than fifty (we were wrong). We thought clotbusting drugs were ineffective, or even harmful, when treating heart attacks in people who’d already had a heart attack (we were wrong). We thought drugs called ‘ACE inhibitors’ stopped reducing the death rate in heart failure patients if they were also on aspirin (we were wrong). Unusually, none of these findings was driven by financial avarice: they were driven by ambition, perhaps; excitement at new findings, certainly; ignorance of the risks of subgroup analysis; and, of course, chance.

I'll read it off, straight out of the book. Come, Almanack! To begin: there's Aries, or the Ram— lecherous dog, he begets us; then, Taurus, or the Bull— he bumps us the first thing; then Gemini, or the Twins— that is, Virtue and Vice; we try to reach Virtue, when lo! comes Cancer the Crab, and drags us back; and here, going from Virtue, Leo, a roaring Lion, lies in the path— he gives a few fierce bites and surly dabs with his paw; we escape, and hail Virgo, the Virgin! that's our first love; we marry and think to be happy for aye, when pop comes Libra, or the Scales—happiness weighed and found wanting; and while we are very sad about that, Lord! how we suddenly jump, as Scorpio, or the Scorpion, stings us in the rear; we are curing the wound, when whang comes the arrows all round; Sagittarius, or the Archer, is amusing himself. As we pluck out the shafts, stand aside! here's the battering-ram, Capricornus, or the Goat; full tilt, he comes rushing, and headlong we are tossed; when Aquarius, or the Waterbearer, pours out his whole deluge and drowns us; and to wind up with Pisces, or the Fishes, we sleep. There's a sermon now, writ in high heaven, and the sun goes through it every year, and yet comes out of it all alive and hearty. Jollily

Amo al SEÑOR, porque ha oído mi voz y mis súplicas. 2 Porque ha inclinado a mí su oído, le invocaré en todos mis días. 3 Me rodearon los dolores de la muerte, me encontraron las angustias del Seol; angustia y dolor había yo hallado. 4 Entonces invoqué el Nombre del SEÑOR, diciendo: Libra ahora, oh SEÑOR, mi alma. 5 Clemente es el SEÑOR y justo; sí, misericordioso es nuestro Dios. 6 El SEÑOR guarda a los simples; estaba debilitado, y me salvó. 7 Vuelve, oh alma mía, a tu reposo; porque el SEÑOR te ha hecho bien. 8 Porque has librado mi alma de la muerte, mis ojos de lágrimas, y mis pies de resbalar. 9 Andaré delante del SEÑOR en la tierra de los vivientes.

El proceso acaba siempre sustrayendo a la circulación más dinero del que a ella se lanzó. El algodón comprado por 100 libras esterlinas se vende, por ejemplo, por 100 + 10, o sea por 110 libras esterlinas. La fórmula completa de este proceso es por tanto: D – M – D’, donde D’ = D + D D, o lo que es lo mismo igual a la suma de dinero primeramente desembolsada más un incremento. Este incremento o excedente que queda después de cubrir el valor primitivo es lo que yo llamo plusvalía (surplus value). Por tanto, el valor primeramente desembolsado no sólo se conserva en la circulación, sino que su magnitud de valor experimenta, dentro de ella, un cambio, se incrementa con una plusvalía, se valoriza. Y este proceso es el que lo convierte en capital.

Dinner with Trimalchio as explained on Angelfire.com Fragment 35 The next course is not as grand as Encolpius expects but it is novel. Trimalchio has a course made that represent the 12 signs of the Zodiac, again showing his superstitious nature. Over each sign of the zodiac is food that is connected with the subject of the sign of the zodiac. Ares the ram - chickpeas (the ram is a sign of virility and chickpeas represent the penis in satire) Taurus the bull - a beefsteak . Beef is from cattle and the bull represents strength. Gemini (The heavenly twins) - Testicles and kidneys (since they come in pairs!) Cancer the Crab- a garland (which looks like pincers) but we also learn later (fragment 39 ) that the is Trimalchios sign and by putting a garland over his sign he is honouring it. Leo the Lion - an African fig since lions were from Africa. Virgo the Virgin - a young sows udder , symbol of innocence. Libra the scales - A pair of balance pans with a different dessert in each! Scorpio - a sea scorpion Sagittarius the archer - a sea bream with eyespots, you need a good eye to practise archery. Capricorn- a lobster Aquarius the water carrier - a goose i.e. water fowl. Pisces the fish - two mullets (fish!) In the middle of the dish is a piece of grass and on the grass a honey comb. We are told by Trimalchio himself that this represents mother earth (fragment 39) who is round like a grassy knoll or an egg and has good things inside her like a honey comb.

Pocas plagas socavan tanto una sociedad como la hiperinflación, y el premio político para el que pudiese acabar con ella era enorme. Los diputados de la asamblea se habían asignado salarios a salvo de la inflación, vinculándolos al precio de 30.000 kilogramos de trigo. El Directorio abolió la Ley de Máximos, que mantenía los precios bajos en artículos como el pan, la harina, la leche o la carne, por lo que las malas cosechas de 1798 provocaron que una libra de pan alcanzase los 3 soles, por primera vez en dos años, y esto provocó acaparamiento, revueltas y una ansiedad general. Pero puede que lo peor de todo fuese que el pueblo no veía posibilidad de mejora, ya que las revisiones de la constitución debían ser ratificadas tres veces por ambas cámaras, en intervalos de tres años, y después por una asamblea especial para dar por cerrado un proceso que llevaba 9 años[19]. Esta situación no era susceptible de producirse en una legislatura tan fluctuante e inestable como la de finales de 1799, que incluía a realistas camuflados, Feuillants constitucionalistas –moderados–, antiguos girondinos, neojacobinos «patrióticos» y valiosos, pero escasos, partidarios del Directorio. En contraste, las constituciones que había impuesto Napoleón recientemente en las repúblicas Cisalpina, Veneciana, Ligur, Lemánica, Helvética y Romana, junto con sus reformas administrativas en Malta y Egipto, le mostraban como un republicano celoso y eficiente, que confiaba en el fuerte control ejecutivo y central, soluciones ambas que podrían dar buen resultado en la Francia metropolitana.