“For he who lives more lives than one
More deaths than one must die.”
Oscar Wilde book The Ballad of Reading Gaol
Pt. III, st. 22
The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898)
Source: The Ballad of Reading Gaol and Other Poems
Source: Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
“For he who lives more lives than one
More deaths than one must die.”
Oscar Wilde book The Ballad of Reading Gaol
Pt. III, st. 22
The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898)
Source: The Ballad of Reading Gaol and Other Poems
Simone de Beauvoir book The Second Sex
In both sexes is played out the same drama of the flesh and the spirit, of finitude and transcendence; both are gnawed away by time and laid in wait for by death, they have the same essential need for one another; and they can gain from their liberty the same glory. If they were to taste it, they would no longer be tempted to dispute fallacious privileges, and fraternity between them could then come into existence.
The Second Sex (1949)
“I read so I can live more than one life in more than one place.”
Anne Tyler (1941) American novelist
Diogenes Laërtius (180–240) biographer of ancient Greek philosophers
Aristotle, 9.
The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers (c. 200 A.D.), Book 5: The Peripatetics
Theodore Sturgeon book Venus Plus X
Section 41 (p. 126)
Venus Plus X (1960)
“One reads books in order to gain the privilege of living more than one life….”
Garrison Keillor (1942) American radio host and writer
John Pople (1925–2004) Nobel prize winning British chemist
describing his discoveries in Density functional theory, December 29, 1995, in an interview with [István Hargittai, Magdolna Hargittai, Candid science: conversations with famous chemists, Volume 1 of Candid science, Imperial College Press, 2000, 1860942288, 180]
Marcel Proust (1871–1922) French novelist, critic, and essayist
Notes to Sesame and Lilies by John Ruskin, translated by Proust (1906); from Marcel Proust: On Reading Ruskin, trans. Jean Autret and William Burford
Context: A man is not more entitled to be "received in good society," or at least to wish to be, because he is more intelligent and cultivated. This is one of those sophisms that the vanity of intelligent people picks up in the arsenal of their intelligence to justify their basest inclinations. In other words, having become more intelligent creates some rights to be less. Very simply, diverse personalities are to be found in the breast of each of us, and often the life of more than one superior man is nothing but the coexistence of a philosopher and a snob. Actually, there are very few philosophers and artists who are absolutely detached from ambition and respect for power, from "people of position." And among those who are more delicate or more sated, snobism replaces ambition and respect for power in the same way superstition arises on the ruins of religious beliefs. Morality gains nothing there. Between a worldly philosopher and a philosopher intimidated by a minister of state, the second is still the more innocent.
“But in the end one needs more courage to live than to kill himself.”
Albert Camus book A Happy Death
A Happy Death (1971)