With these provocative thoughts on the central questions of living, Dr Simon May catches our minds off guard in areas as diverse as love, pride, self-esteem, gratitude, timing, lying, talking, knowing, suffering, escaping, silence, evil and thinking itself. By turns humorous and serious, his aphorisms go to the core of who we are. The better one knows someone, the harder it is to recognize them. Modesty shields us from others, humility from ourselves. Not all impatience is a vice, but all vices may be forms of impatience. Few of our deep problems can be resolved; most must be outgrown. Chance, like a lover, is one of those awkward things of which we must be simultaneously slave and master.