As a result of my hike, I am much more inclined to “do” things. I will have fewer “should have done”s even if it means incurring some “wish I hadn’t”s.

Miss Drew, entering her classroom, was aghast to see instead of the usual small array of buttonholes on her desk, a mass of already withering hothouse flowers completely covering her desk and chair. William was a boy who never did things by halves.

Words alone lack authority, and we risk making them surrogates for the life we’d like to lead.

Politicians will always offer to handle education, health care, retirement, and so forth, as if they come at no cost. But there are caveats. If the government is the provider of “free” education, then the government will also decide what is taught and, potentially, how it is used. The fewer responsibilities we have, the less free we are. Communism and democracy differ in this only by a matter of degree. We can vote away freedom as easily as it can be taken away.

He who takes delight in deceiving others must not complain when he is deceived himself.

This seems to be an attitude worth striving for when I return to work, to perform my job as if I was doing it under my own guidance – as I would want it done myself – not to limit myself to the role of employee, and not to refrain from giving more of myself to the job than is warranted by my pay. It is I who would benefit.

I like pirates, don’t you, Miss Drew? An’ robbers an’ things like that? Miss Drew, would you like to be married to a robber?

There is a danger that we can confuse being busy with being entertained and being relaxed with being bored. When hiking, we don’t just leave behind the customary distractions; we have to escape from our addiction to them. It.

Simply sitting unhurried in the shade of leaves is an irreplaceable moment.

We need political authority, then, because it gives us the security that allows us to trust other people, and in a climate of trust people are able to cooperate to produce all those benefits that Hobbes listed as signally lacking in the ‘natural condition’.