“It was not pleasant to admit what one is willing to do to go on living.”

Source: The Ophiuchi Hotline (1977), Chapter 14 (p. 141)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "It was not pleasant to admit what one is willing to do to go on living." by John Varley?
John Varley photo
John Varley 23
American science fiction author 1947

Related quotes

Solón photo

“Do not counsel what is most pleasant, but what is best.”

Solón (-638–-558 BC) Athenian legislator

Demetrius of Phalerum, "Apophthegms of the Seven Sages," in Early Greek Philosophy, vol. 2 (Loeb Classical Library, volume 525), p. 141

Chester A. Arthur photo

“What a pleasant lot of fellows they are. What a pity they have so little sense about politics. If they lived North the last one of them would be Republicans.”

Chester A. Arthur (1829–1886) American politician, 21st President of the United States (in office from 1881 to 1885)

As quoted in Recollections of Thirteen Presidents, John S. Wise (1906).

Arthur Schopenhauer photo

“Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills.”

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) German philosopher

Der Mensch kann tun was er will; er kann aber nicht wollen was er will.
Einstein paraphrasing Schopenhauer. Reportedly from On The Freedom Of The Will (1839), as translated in The Philosophy of American History: The Historical Field Theory (1945) by Morris Zucker, p. 531
Variant translations:
Man can do what he wants but he cannot want what he wants.
As quoted in The Motivated Brain: A Neurophysiological Analysis of Human Behavior (1991) by Pavel Vasilʹevich Simonov, p. 198
We can do what we wish, but we can only wish what we must.
As quoted by Einstein in "What Life Means to Einstein: An Interview by George Sylvester Viereck" The Saturday Evening Post (26 October 1929) p. 17. A scan of the article is available online here http://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/wp-content/uploads/satevepost/what_life_means_to_einstein.pdf (see p. 114).
Attributed
Source: Essays and Aphorisms

T. Harv Eker photo
Mohammed Alkobaisi photo

“There is always room for improvement in our lives. Are we willing to try?! Are we going to try?!”

Mohammed Alkobaisi (1970) Iraqi Islamic scholar

Understanding Islam, "Morals and Ethics" http://vod.dmi.ae/media/96716/Ep_03_Morals_and_Ethics Dubai Media

Jean Paul Sartre photo

“One is still what one is going to cease to be and already what one is going to become. One lives one’s death, one dies one’s life.”

Saint Genet, Actor and Martyr (1952)
Source: Book 2, "The Melodious Child Dead in Me"

Martial photo

“Difficult and easy-going, pleasant and churlish, you are at the same time: I can neither live with you nor without you.”
Difficilis facilis iucundus acerbus es idem: Nec possum tecum vivere nec sine te.

Difficilis facilis iucundus acerbus es idem:
Nec possum tecum vivere nec sine te.
XII, 46
Variant translation: Difficult or easy, pleasant or bitter, you are the same you: I cannot live with you—or without you.
Compare: "Thus I can neither live with you nor without you", Ovid, Amores, Book III, xib, 39
Epigrams (c. 80 – 104 AD)

José Ortega Y Gasset photo
Louisa May Alcott photo
E. B. White photo

“No one should come to New York to live unless he is willing to be lucky.”

E. B. White (1899–1985) American writer

Here is New York (1949)

Related topics