
“The greater the ambiguity, the greater the pleasure.”
Spectrum: From Right to Left in the World of Ideas (2005), Debts 1. "The London Review of Books" (1996; 2005)
“The greater the ambiguity, the greater the pleasure.”
Source: Think Big: Unleashing Your Potential for Excellence
Source: Martin Eden (1909), Ch. VIII
Context: It was just such uniqueness of points of view that startled Ruth. Not only were they new to her, and contrary to her own beliefs, but she always felt in them germs of truth that threatened to unseat or modify her own convictions. Had she been fourteen instead of twenty-four, she might have been changed by them; but she was twenty-four, conservative by nature and upbringing, and already crystallized into the cranny of life where she had been born and formed. It was true, his bizarre judgments troubled her in the moments they were uttered, but she ascribed them to his novelty of type and strangeness of living, and they were soon forgotten. Nevertheless, while she disapproved of them, the strength of their utterance, and the flashing of eyes and earnestness of face that accompanied them, always thrilled her and drew her toward him. She would never have guessed that this man who had come from beyond her horizon, was, in such moments, flashing on beyond her horizon with wider and deeper concepts. Her own limits were the limits of her horizon; but limited minds can recognize limitations only in others. And so she felt that her outlook was very wide indeed, and that where his conflicted with hers marked his limitations; and she dreamed of helping him to see as she saw, of widening his horizon until it was identified with hers.
“I found that it is much more pleasurable to read adventures than to live them.”
Source: The Ophiuchi Hotline (1977), Chapter 23 (p. 210)
“Anticipation is the greater part of pleasure.”
Source: The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories
Of The Subject of Certainty p. 31
The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psycho Analysis (1978)
8
Variant translation: No pleasure is itself a bad thing, but the things that produce some kinds of pleasure, bring along with them unpleasantness that is much greater than the pleasure itself.
Sovereign Maxims
Source: The Invincible (1936), Ch. 1 Fearlessness