I don't like people who drain my time and energy. If you've seen the Harry Potter films, we use the term 'dementors' - people who can draw the life out of you in terms of your energy. So we eradicate the 'dementors', encourage the positive people, and that spreads around to create the team spirit we have here
No one wants to hear about how awesome you were; people want to hear about the time you blew it. So I think the longer you do stand-up, the more comfortable you are. You stop wanting to hide your foibles and instead want to show who you are.
There are people enough to tread upon me in my lowly state, without my doing outrage to their feelings by possessing learning. Learning ain't for me. A person like myself had better not aspire. If he is to get on in life, he must get on 'umbly, Master Copperfield!
Everything is on such a clear financial basis in France. It is the simplest country to live in. No one makes things complicated by becoming your friend for any obscure reason. If you want people to like you you have only to spend a little money. I spent a little money and the waiter liked me. He appreciated my valuable qualities. He would be glad to see me, and would want me at his table. It would be a sincere liking because it would have a sound basis. I was back in France.
The Whites have carried to these (colonial) people the worst that they could carry: the plagues of the world: materialism, fanaticism, alcoholism, and syphilis. Moreover, since what these people possessed on their own was superior to anything we could give them, they have remained themselves... The sole result of the activity of the colonizers is: they have everywhere aroused hatred.
To those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict, or blame their society's ills on the West - know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy.