Jessamyn West (1902–1984) American author
To See the Dream, part 1 (1956)
The Borough (1810), Letter xii, "Players".
Jessamyn West (1902–1984) American author
To See the Dream, part 1 (1956)
Nader Shah (1688–1747) ruled as Shah of Iran
Madmonarchs biography http://www.xs4all.nl/~monarchs/madmonarchs/nadir/nadir_bio.htm
Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist
"A Liberal Decalogue" http://www.panarchy.org/russell/decalogue.1951.html, from "The Best Answer to Fanaticism: Liberalism", New York Times Magazine (16/December/1951); later printed in The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell (1969), vol. 3: 1944-1967, pp. 71-2 <br class="br">1950s <br class="br">Context: The Ten Commandments that, as a teacher, I should wish to promulgate, might be set forth as follows:<br>1. Do not feel absolutely certain of anything.<br>2. Do not think it worth while to proceed by concealing evidence, for the evidence is sure to come to light.<br>3. Never try to discourage thinking for you are sure to succeed.<br>4. When you meet with opposition, even if it should be from your husband or your children, endeavour to overcome it by argument and not by authority, for a victory dependent upon authority is unreal and illusory.<br>5. Have no respect for the authority of others, for there are always contrary authorities to be found.<br>6. Do not use power to suppress opinions you think pernicious, for if you do the opinions will suppress you.<br>7. Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.<br>8. Find more pleasure in intelligent dissent that in passive agreement, for, if you value intelligence as you should, the former implies a deeper agreement than the latter.<br>9. Be scrupulously truthful, even if the truth is inconvenient, for it is more inconvenient when you try to conceal it.<br>10. Do not feel envious of the happiness of those who live in a fool's paradise, for only a fool will think that it is happiness.
“Our English economists have been living in a fool's paradise.”
William Stanley Jevons The Theory of Political Economy
Preface To The Second Edition, p. 27-28.
The Theory of Political Economy (1871)
Context: The conclusion to which I am ever more clearly coming is that the only hope of attaining a true system of economics is to fling aside, once and forever, the mazy and preposterous assumptions of the Ricardian school. Our English economists have been living in a fool's paradise. The truth is with the French school, and the sooner we recognize the fact, the better it will be for all the world, except perhaps the few writers who are far too committed to the old erroneous doctrines to allow for renunciation.
“Travelling is a fool's paradise. Our first journeys discover to us the indifference of places.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet
1840s, Essays: First Series (1841), Self-Reliance
Context: Travelling is a fool's paradise. Our first journeys discover to us the indifference of places. At home I dream that at Naples, at Rome, I can be intoxicated with beauty, and lose my sadness. I pack my trunk, embrace my friends, embark on the sea, and at last wake up in Naples, and there beside me is the stern fact, the sad self, unrelenting, identical, that I fled from. I seek the Vatican, and the palaces. I affect to be intoxicated with sights and suggestions, but I am not intoxicated. My giant goes with me wherever I go.
Martha Graham (1894–1991) American dancer and choreographer
I Am A Dancer (1952)
Context: Dancing appears glamorous, easy, delightful. But the path to paradise of the achievement is not easier than any other. There is fatigue so great that the body cries, even in its sleep. There are times of complete frustration, there are daily small deaths. Then I need all the comfort that practice has stored in my memory, a tenacity of faith.
“A man searching for paradise lost can seem a fool to those who never sought the other world.”
Jim Morrison (1943–1971) lead singer of The Doors
Claude McKay (1889–1948) Jamaican American writer, poet
Complete Poems, University of Illinois Press, 2004, p. 348
“In soft deluding lies let fools delight.
A shadow marks our days, which end in Night.”
Hilaire Belloc (1870–1953) writer
"On a Sundial"
Sonnets and Verse (1938)