Unlike most people I know, I’m not a fan of quotable quotes. More than one sentence is usually needed to fully express an idea. Plus, quotable quotes are often taken out of context and assumed to have a meaning that was never originally intended. And then there is the rampant problem of the misattribution of quotes on the Internet.

However, now that I have that disclaimer out of the way, I’d love to share some quotable quotes from a tiny book I just read. As I explained in a recent post about my travels in London, I made the impulsive decision while abroad to buy a stack of tiny books to take home on the plane with me. Some of these purchases were so small that I hesitate to call them books; but pamphlet seems too stuffy to describe them, while booklet, which is at least etymologically promising, seems too unprofessionally bound.

So let me use the word book. This one is a Penguin Classics collection of quotations by Oscar Wilde, an Irish writer who was born in 1854 and died in 1900. The book spared no pages on an introduction, so I cannot say what types of works the quotes originally came from. I know only that the venerable publishing house Penguin Random House—surely more reputable than the Internet at large—deems them to be penned by Wilde. So I trust that they were.

Following are a handful of my favorites from this little collection. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did.

“Language is the noblest instrument we have, either for the revealing or the concealing of thought.”

A good reminder that just because it’s convincingly spoken or printed doesn’t mean it’s true. And I am definitely on board with the idea that language is a noble instrument of expression. Perhaps like the piano.

“An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all.”

Yep, thinking outside the box can be hazardous to one’s health. And also to the health of others. Beware!

“If one tells the truth, one is sure, sooner or later, to be found out.”

Ha! I love this one. I have experienced this, unfortunately. Also: knowing that Wilde was imprisoned for homosexuality adds tragic depth here.

“Only the shallow know themselves.”

Another gem. This one gives me comfort because I recently experienced a time of confusion in my personal life, during which I couldn’t quite figure myself out. . . .

“Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live.”

Brilliantly put. It’s okay to follow your dreams: don’t let anyone tell you otherwise! On the flip side, you can’t expect others to follow you over that rainbow.

“The secret of life is never to have an emotion that is unbecoming.”

Hmm. Meditation might help with this. I have lately been listening to a guided meditation about keeping an even keel. Being even keeled is rarely, if ever, unbecoming.

On the other hand, this bon mot, like many of Wilde’s statements, is also a tongue-in-cheek criticism of society and perhaps should not be taken literally.

Are you brilliant at breakfast?

A new article, written by yours truly, is live on the Silent Book Club blog. It’s called How to Organize and Host a Book Club. If you’ve ever considered starting a local chapter, this article is for you.

Silent Book Club is an international organization with dozens of chapters around the U.S. and world. At a Silent Book Club event, friends meet to talk about books (or any topic!), drink wine (or any beverage!), and read books (or any reading material!). Attendees bring their own book, e-book, or magazine—whatever they are currently reading. It’s an opportunity to chat with other book lovers and get some personal reading done.

Does this sound like fun? Check out the Silent Book Club website to search for a chapter near you. If there’s no chapter near you—or even if there is, but you’d like to meet at a different time or place—consider starting your own chapter. It’s not as hard as you might think.

As a bonus, if you’re looking to beef up the leadership section of your professional resume, organizing and hosting a group like this is a great way to do so. (I am convinced that serving as president of my local Toastmasters chapter, about five years ago, was key in landing my current position at a great company.)

As a second bonus, starting a book club is a great way to give back to your community. Has anyone ever kindly welcomed you in, when you were the newbie in town or in a social group? Starting a book club is one way that you can pay it forward and be the one welcoming people in.

Check out my article here to read 7 great tips for starting a book club of the silent variety. (We’re actually rather loud, to tell the truth!) Happy Wednesday, everyone, and happy reading!

I’m excited to share that an article I wrote was today published in the Washington Independent Review of Books. Read the article here!

The inquisitive one had been spending a lot of time on social media.

The herbs in the garden were documented on Instagram. The new kitchen gadget and new running shoes were documented on Facebook. The vintage furniture steal was documented on Pinterest. And every waking thought was documented on Twitter.

All of this photo posting and thought tweeting was starting to pile up in the inquisitive one’s brain like a goopy mess of potato peels. It was as if every peel of potato had an eye, and every eye was staring judgmentally at the inquisitive one!

“I live in an era of oversharing,” the inquisitive one thought. “I participate in that, and I enjoy participating in that; but maybe I need a break from that!”

So the inquisitive one canceled the original plan for the evening, which was to go to a hip new D.C. bar. Presumably, the evening would have consisted mainly of taking a series of selfies with an exotically prepared martini, mulling over which photos came out best, fiddling with various filters, and stressing about what to write as captions.

Instead, the inquisitive one went on a long run through a woodsy area. It was a lovely evening, and the trees were cast in brilliant golds and fading grays.

“Ah! This is where it’s at,” thought the inquisitive one. “Here in this woodsy area, I am all alone, doing my thing, undocumented, unshared, invisible, happy in my element: oh joy!”

However, unbeknownst to the inquisitive one, a Google car was driving by at that very moment, taking photos for the Street View of Google Maps. Moreover, a wedding had just taken place in the woodsy area, and the wedding photographer, plus family members and friends of the couple, were taking numerous photos of the scene.

Furthermore, someone had recruited a friend to make a video of him doing calisthenics, which he planned to post on YouTube and also use in his audition for a reality TV show. And someone else was taking a video of her dog, to whom she was teaching elaborately silly tricks. She planned to post the video on multiple social media sites and also submit it to a funny video contest.

The inquisitive one accidentally photo- and videobombed every single one of these people. As a result, the inquisitive one’s likeness ended up on the web multiple times—in many instances very clearly and with ridiculous-looking poses and expressions—all in spite of the original, innocent intent of the long run through the woodsy area.

Oh, and another thing. I had hired an artist* to follow the inquisitive one around and, through portraiture, document with precision what the inquisitive one looks like. Thus I hoped to prove, for all time, that the inquisitive one and I are completely different people!

You can see the result of this artistry above (and you can, as you wish, contrast this illustration of the inquisitive one with my own new look—for a brand new selfie of me now appears on my Home page!—and you can see for yourself the many vast differences between us).

But the point is, this fabulous portrait of the inquisitive one was surreptitiously completed, by the artist I secretly hired, during that very same run, that very same evening, unbeknownst to the inquisitive one.

It’s a beautiful work of art.

I intend to plaster the Internet with it.

*Many thanks to the brilliant Washington, D.C.-area artist Jim Nuttle. I was pleased to discover that he is a genius in both the graphic and mind-reading arts and a true professional. Check out some of his other cool art projects on Twitter, Instagram, and his website.

A relative of mine recently emailed me and other relatives to ask a philosophical question: Does it matter whether people actually believe the tenets of their religious faith?

I wrote back with a response, which went something like this: Our beliefs and the stories we tell are extremely important. These cannot be discounted as superfluous aspects of a religion. They are important because they affect our real-world decisions. How we think about things matters.

Not long after that, I read the masterpiece Sapiens, by Yuval Noah Harari. Harari, in this book, delves into this topic in a much more comprehensive way than I did. The book helped to clarify my understanding of this philosophical point.

Stories and beliefs have a childlike reputation, as if they are merely tricks to get us to fall asleep; but therein lies their incredible power. Because, as Harari explains, the tricks work: and we are lulled into a world where everyone gets along under the magical umbrella of the story.

He writes: “Myths, it transpired, are stronger than anyone could have imagined.” Humankind is the only species that uses language to tell stories about things not present in the immediate surroundings. My chickens can make a distress call that means “There’s a hawk nearby!” But they cannot make a sound that means “That’s the same hawk we saw yesterday, but different from the one we saw the day before that,” or “That hawk is beautiful, look at those marvelous feathers,” or “That hawk was sent by a great and powerful god!”

Humans can say such things, and through language and myth they are able to build large societies of strangers working together under the same belief systems. Harari calls a belief system an imagined order. And he explains that religion is only one of many spheres in which people use stories and beliefs to foster cooperation. Here’s an interesting passage from the book:

“An imagined order can be maintained only if large segments of the population—and in particular large segments of the elite and the security forces—truly believe in it. Christianity would not have lasted 2,000 years if the majority of bishops and priests failed to believe in Christ. American democracy would not have lasted almost 250 years if the majority of presidents and congressmen failed to believe in human rights. The modern economic system would not have lasted a single day if the majority of investors and bankers failed to believe in capitalism.”

Harari points out that unless you are a true cynic, you believe in at least one, and probably many, imagined orders. The true cynic, he explains, is not apt to cooperate with anyone. In the cynic’s mind, all that talk about religion, patriotism, human rights, finance, politics, romance, and so on is just so much B.S. The true cynic will conclude that it’s better to sit alone with one’s home-brewed beer, cherry tree, and shotgun and try to enjoy life before it’s all over.

But then Harari points out the flip side of this. If you’re not a true cynic and thus do believe in something, it’s ultimately impossible (if you decide to go down that rabbit hole, which may or may not be advisable) to prove the truth of your cherished imagined orders. They are likely, upon logical scrutiny, to evaporate into nothing. This is where the word faith comes in.

And so, as Harari explains, because we have faith in the existence of the monetary system, we can have booming economies, home mortgages, business loans, and one-day Amazon deliveries. Because we have faith in the existence of our countries, we can have complex societies that provide schools, police, libraries, mail service, defense, unemployment benefits, and scientific research. Harari does not try to claim that these things are necessarily better than what humans had originally in their hunter-gatherer state; but he does explain that there’s no going back.

(In order to go back to a pre-imagined-order state, we would have to get everyone to agree to do this together. Otherwise, those with an imagined order would simply cooperate and trounce those without. But the only way to get a large group of people to agree to do something is through an imagined order.)

And so, Harari provides a somewhat tragic but interesting and ultimately, I think, correct answer to my relative’s philosophical question. It is important for people to actually believe something if they are to form a cohesive group of strangers—one that’s not just an accidental encounter of isolated cynics who are unlikely to cooperate. Of course, a few members of a religious group, nation, or financial market can be cynics without the whole operation falling apart. But the majority must believe—especially, as Harari explains, the leaders and the enforcers.

Are you a believer or a cynic?