"Laws are like sausages. It is better not to see them being made."
A thought-provoking point, and one that's got me contemplating what goes into sausages more than I'd anticipated when dragging myself out of bed after too little sleep this morning. It's from our site of the week, The Daily Aphorism. (Actually it's really from Otto von Bismarck, but you know what I mean). A spin-off from The School of Life, which amongst many bizarre and wonderful things offers a "bibliotherapy" service, and has its own entertaining blog, it'll be running for a month from next Monday, offering subscribers a "short but pithy piece of wisdom" every morning.
Let me tantalise you with a few: I like Mae West's cheery "Too much of a good thing can be truly wonderful", but feel that Jerome K Jerome's "I like work; it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours" might be more appropriate.
And hang on a second before you rush to sign up – there's also a competition to compose your own aphorism, judged by Alain de Botton, who's part of The School of Life's faculty, director Sophie Howarth and James Geary, who's an "aphorism expert" (he's written a book about them).
The winner gets a free place on one of The School of Life's courses – which include "discussing the history of romance in a Travelodge, the contemporary relevance of Marx in a union office, or the pleasures of craftsmanship in a furniture workshop" – as well as pride of place for their entry in The School of Life's window. So get aphorising (and give us all a sneak preview if you come up with anything particularly aphoristic).
I leave you with the words of Anton Chekhov: "Any idiot can face a crisis. It is this day-to-day living that wears you out."
