
Pyrrho, 11.
The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers (c. 200 A.D.), Book 9: Uncategorized philosophers and Skeptics
The Kasîdah of Hâjî Abdû El-Yezdî (1870), Note I : Hâjî Abdû, The Man
Context: The Hâjî regrets the excessive importance attached to a possible future state: he looks upon this as a psychical stimulant, a day dream, whose revulsion and reaction disorder waking life. The condition may appear humble and prosaic to those exalted by the fumes of Fancy, by a spiritual dram-drinking which, like the physical, is the pursuit of an ideal happiness. But he is too wise to affirm or to deny the existence of another world. For life beyond the grave there is no consensus of mankind… Even the instinctive sense of our kind is here dumb. We may believe what we are taught: we can know nothing. He would, therefore, cultivate that receptive mood which, marching under the shadow of mighty events, leads to the highest of goals, — the development of Humanity. With him suspension of judgment is a system.
Pyrrho, 11.
The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers (c. 200 A.D.), Book 9: Uncategorized philosophers and Skeptics
Preface (November 1880)
The Kasîdah of Hâjî Abdû El-Yezdî (1870)
Context: The Translator has ventured to entitle a "Lay of the Higher Law" the following composition, which aims at being in advance of its time; and he has not feared the danger of collision with such unpleasant forms as the "Higher Culture." The principles which justify the name are as follows: —The Author asserts that Happiness and Misery are equally divided and distributed in the world.He makes Self-cultivation, with due regard to others, the sole and sufficient object of human life.He suggests that the affections, the sympathies, and the "divine gift of Pity" are man's highest enjoyments.He advocates suspension of judgment, with a proper suspicion of "Facts, the idlest of superstitions."Finally, although destructive to appearance, he is essentially reconstructive.For other details concerning the Poem and the Poet, the curious reader is referred to the end of the volume.
“Suspense is worse than disappointment.”
Letter to Thomas Sloan, (1 September 1791)
We are of course talking here about a man-made system.
The New Economics for Industry, Government, Education (1993)
Art of Politics (1729). Colonel Titus is reported to have said, "I hope we shall not be wise as the frogs to whom Jupiter gave a stork for their king. To trust expedients with such a king on the throne would be just as wise as if there were a lion in the lobby, and we should vote to let him in and chain him, instead of fastening the door to keep him out". On the Exclusion Bill, Jan. 7, 1681.
“It is now life and not art that requires the willing suspension of disbelief.”
"The Novel Alive or Dead," A Gathering of Fugitives: New Essays (1956)
“That willing suspension of disbelief for the moment, which constitutes poetic faith.”
Source: Biographia Literaria (1817), Ch. XIV
“The anguish of suspense made men even desire the arrival of the enemy.”
Boule de Suif (1880)
Context: Life seemed to have stopped short; the shops were shut, the streets deserted. Now and then an inhabitant, awed by the silence, glided swiftly by in the shadow of the walls. The anguish of suspense made men even desire the arrival of the enemy.