Donald Barthelme (1931–1989) American writer, editor, and professor
“A Nation of Wheels”, p. 131.
The Teachings of Don. B: Satires, Parodies, Fables, Illustrated Stories, and Plays of Donald Barthelme (1992)
Source: All That I Am
Donald Barthelme (1931–1989) American writer, editor, and professor
“A Nation of Wheels”, p. 131.
The Teachings of Don. B: Satires, Parodies, Fables, Illustrated Stories, and Plays of Donald Barthelme (1992)
“True kindness presupposes the faculty of imagining as one’s own the suffering and joys of others.”
André Gide (1869–1951) French novelist and essayist
Portraits and Aphorisms (1903), Pretexts
George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist
"Lear, Tolstoy and the Fool," Polemic (March 1947)
Context: A normal human being does not want the Kingdom of Heaven: he wants life on earth to continue. This is not solely because he is "weak," "sinful" and anxious for a "good time." Most people get a fair amount of fun out of their lives, but on balance life is suffering, and only the very young or the very foolish imagine otherwise. Ultimately it is the Christian attitude which is self-interested and hedonistic, since the aim is always to get away from the painful struggle of earthly life and find eternal peace in some kind of Heaven or Nirvana. The humanist attitude is that the struggle must continue and that death is the price of life.
“If you could escape your sufferings and did so, where would you go outside of them?”
Antonio Porchia (1885–1968) Italian Argentinian poet
Si pudieras salir de tus penas y salieras de tus penas, ¿sabrías adonde ir fuera de tus penas?
Voces (1943)
John Nash (1928–2015) American mathematician and Nobel Prize laureate
As quoted in " A Brilliant Madness A Beautiful Madness http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/nash/ (2002), PBS TV program; also cited in Doing Psychiatry Wrong: A Critical and Prescriptive Look at a Faltering Profession (2013) by René J. Muller, p. 62 <br class="br">2000s
“Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination.”
Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet
Variant: Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination.
Alastair Reynolds (1966) British novelist and astronomer
“You’ve just described nine-tenths of human history.”
Open and Shut (p. 265)
Short fiction, Belladonna Nights and Other Stories (2021)