Quote of the Day (Adam Smith, on ‘The Virtues of Sensitivity and Self-Control’)

“Just as taste and good judgment, when considered as qualities that deserve praise and admiration, are supposed to imply an uncommon delicacy of sentiment and acuteness of understanding, so the virtues of sensitivity and self-control are thought of as consisting in uncommon degrees of those qualities. The likeable virtue of humaneness requires, surely, a level of sensitivity far higher than is possessed by crude ordinary people. The great and exalted virtue of magnanimity undoubtedly demands a much higher degree of self-control than the weakest of mortals could exert. Just as the common level of intellect doesn’t involve any notable talents, so the common level of moral qualities doesn’t involve any virtues. Virtue is excellence—something uncommonly great and beautiful, rising far above what is vulgar and ordinary. The likeable virtues consist in a degree of sensitivity that surprises us by its exquisite and unexpected delicacy and tenderness. The awe-inspiring and respectworthy virtues consist in a degree of self-control that astonishes us by its amazing superiority over the most ungovernable passions of human nature.”— Scottish economist and philosopher Adam Smith (1723-1790), The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759)

These days, Adam Smith’s economic precepts in The Wealth of Nations (1776) are much more likely to be followed than the moral ones propounded here. Indeed, those virtues may be more flouted by the rich, famous, and powerful than by ordinary citizens. So much the worse for all of us.

Quote of the Day (Walter Mischel, on ‘The Core Strategy for Self-Control’)

“Regardless of age, the core strategy for self-control is to cool the ‘now’ and heat the ‘later’ — push the temptation in front of you far away in space and time, and bring the distant consequences closer in your mind.” —Walter Mischel, The Marshmallow Test: Mastering Self-Control (2014)

Yes, yes, all well and good—but this strategy simply goes out the window when you are traveling. “Cool the ‘now’”? Not when you have, say, fried ice cream sitting on a plate in front of you at a Thai restaurant in Hilton Head, S.C.

There is another way to regard this, of course. As my college friend Steve notes, it’s a well-known scientific fact that colories don’t count on vacation.

(I must say that I’m not sure of the authority for this fact. Cliff of Cheers, perhaps?)