“I reflected, while I chatted with the woman I had been asked to ‘take in’, that civilized man practises a strange ingenuity in wasting on tedious exercises the brief span of his life.”

— W. Somerset Maugham, book The Moon and Sixpence

Source: The Moon and Sixpence (1919), Ch. 6, p. 22

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W. Somerset Maugham158

British playwright, novelist, short story writer 1874–1965

Daniel Keyes book Flowers for Algernon

Source: Flowers for Algernon (1966)

“If you ask how he is to know when one interest outweighs another, I can only answer that he must get his knowledge just as the legislator gets it, from experience and study and reflection; in brief, from life itself.”

Benjamin N. Cardozo (1870–1938) United States federal judge

Page 113
Other writings, The Nature of the Judicial Process (1921)

“[I]t would be a piece of ingenuousness to accuse the man of to-day of his lack of moral code. The accusation would leave him cold, or rather, would flatter him. Immoralism has become a commonplace, and anybody and everybody boasts of practising it.”

José Ortega Y Gasset book The Revolt of the Masses

Source: The Revolt of the Masses (1929), Chapter XV: We Arrive At The Real Question

“I expect that Woman will be the last thing civilized by Man.”

George Meredith book The Ordeal of Richard Feverel

Source: The Ordeal of Richard Feverel http://www.gutenberg.org/files/4412/4412.txt (1859), Ch. 1.

“Our span of life is brief, but is long enough for us to live well and honestly.”

Marcus Tullius Cicero (-106–-43 BC) Roman philosopher and statesman

“I never wished I’d been a man. I always felt like a woman and wanted to be a woman. I wanted to be fulfilled professionally and personally, as a woman. There are some who might say I had penis envy, but I only had penis admiration.”

Bette Davis (1908–1989) film and television actress from the United States

“I have always said, heard, that it would not be strange that there had been civilization on Mars, but maybe capitalism arrived there, imperialism arrived and finished off the planet”

Hugo Chávez (1954–2013) 48th President of Venezuela

2011

“I do not think any man would ever treat a woman as his equal, and it is all I ask because I know my worth.”

Berthe Morisot (1841–1895) painter from France

from a long unpublished notebook of Berthe Morisot, 1890; as cited in Berthe Morisot, Jean-Dominique Rey; translation in English, Flammarion, S.A. (ISBN: 978-2-08-020345-8), Paris, 2010, 2016, p. 14
1881 - 1895

“Socrates had no system to teach. Throughout, his philosophy was a spiritual exercise, an invitation to a new way of life, active reflection, and living consciousness.”

Pierre Hadot (1922–2010) French historian and philosopher

trans. Michael Chase, p. 157
La Philosophie comme manière de vivre (2001)

“I have not long to live. I have lasted more than a man’s average allotted span, and while I still am hale and hearty, I know full well the hand of time, while it may miss a man at one reaping, will get him at the next.”

Clifford D. Simak book Time and Again

Source: Time and Again (1951), Chapter XXI (p. 107)

“I reflected, while I chatted with the woman I had been asked to ‘take in’, that civilized man practises a strange ingenuity in wasting on tedious exercises the brief span of his life.”

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W. Somerset Maugham158

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