Djelloul Marbrook

It’s always the ones we overlook who are changing the world in concert with angels. It’s the ones who want our attention for it we should distrust.

If we want men with fire in the belly who never flip-flop, we’ll get what we deserve, and we’ll deserve it in poverty, ill health and miserable dupedom.

A leader who never changes his mind (that facet of intelligence which ideologues call flip-flopping) is by definition a fool. A man who always knows who his enemies are and is prepared for you to die for it has never looked around or scarcely looked within (where the enemy usually resides). He’s more concerned with bamboozling you than growing up. In fact, that’s what he does in lieu of growing up.

Anyone who needs somebody to be wrong in order to be right is unworthy of your trust. He hasn’t given the world enough thought to get out of diapers, much less to lead anybody anywhere.

You’d do better to trust your affairs to a good gardener than to such a charlatan. The gardener knows nothing beautiful grows out of ideology. The most infertile soil is an ism. He works hard to improve the soil. He doesn’t praise its aridity.

Never trust a back-slapping glad-hander; he’s a licensed pickpocket. And guess who licensed him? There are bums in the street doing more for you than these high-visibility corruptors.

—DM