“Man does not strive for happiness; only the Englishman does that”
Der Mensch strebt nicht nach Glück; nur der Engländer thut das
Maxims and Arrows, 12
Twilight of the Idols (1888)
69
The Zürau Aphorisms (1917 - 1918)
Source: Desiderata: A Poem for a Way of Life
“Joy comes, grief goes, we know not how;
Everything is happy now,
Everything is upward striving”
Prelude to Pt. I, st. 7
The Vision of Sir Launfal (1848)
Context: Joy comes, grief goes, we know not how;
Everything is happy now,
Everything is upward striving;
'Tis as easy now for the heart to be true
As for grass to be green or skies to be blue,—
'Tis the natural way of living:
Who knows whither the clouds have fled?
In the unscarred heaven they leave no wake;
And the eyes forget the tears they have shed,
The heart forgets its sorrow and ache;
The soul partakes the season's youth,
And the sulphurous rifts of passion and woe
Lie deep 'neath a silence pure and smooth,
Like burnt-out craters healed with snow.
Source: The Expanding Circle: Ethics, Evolution, and Moral Progress (1981), Chapter 5, Reason And Genes, p. 145
Source: As quoted in "In conversation with Kate Bush" by Elio Iannacci in MacLeans (28 November 2016) https://www.macleans.ca/culture/arts/in-conversation-with-kate-bush/
