the world's greatest lie

What's the world's greatest lie? It's this: that at a certain point in our lives, we lose control of what's happening to us, and our lives become controlled by fate.

Paulo Coelho

The Alchemist, HarperCollins 1993. p.18

the frogs and the jackdaws

Thank goodness we don't understand the language of ravens, jackdaws, crickets, frogs, and pigs. Otherwise we'd probably worry about what they think too. Yet how many people seem more brainless than the frogs and the jackdaws? Does that make any difference to us? No. We let what they say upset us and render our lives utterly miserable.

Dio Chrysostom (ca. 40–ca. 120) 

His Meditations, ~200 BC