
“Each man delights in the work that suits him best.”
XIV. 228 (tr. Robert Fagles).
Odyssey (c. 725 BC)
Source: The Odyssey
“Each man delights in the work that suits him best.”
XIV. 228 (tr. Robert Fagles).
Odyssey (c. 725 BC)
Source: The Odyssey
Variant translation: One of the strongest motives that lead men to art and science is escape from everyday life with its painful crudity and hopeless dreariness, from the fetters of one's own ever-shifting desires. A finely tempered nature longs to escape from the personal life into the world of objective perception and thought. With this negative motive goes a positive one. Man seeks to form for himself, in whatever manner is suitable for him, a simplified and lucid image of the world, and so to overcome the world of experience by striving to replace it to some extent by this image. This is what the painter does, and the poet, the speculative philosopher, the natural scientist, each in his own way. Into this image and its formation, he places the center of gravity of his emotional life, in order to attain the peace and serenity that he cannot find within the narrow confines of swirling personal experience.
As quoted in The Professor, the Institute, and DNA (1976) by Rene Dubos; also in The Great Influenza (2004) by John M. Barry
1910s, Principles of Research (1918)
Context: Man tries to make for himself in the fashion that suits him best a simplified and intelligible picture of the world; he then tries to some extent to substitute this cosmos of his for the world of experience, and thus to overcome it. This is what the painter, the poet, the speculative philosopher, and the natural scientist do, each in his own fashion. Each makes this cosmos and its construction the pivot of his emotional life, in order to find in this way the peace and security which he cannot find in the narrow whirlpool of personal experience.
Great Books: The Foundation of a Liberal Education (1954)
“Nature magically suits the man to his fortunes, by making these the fruit of his character.”
Fate
1860s, The Conduct of Life (1860)
Southam v Smout [1964] 1 QB 308 at 320.
Denning was quoting William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham
Judgments
Source: What is Property? (1840), Ch. V