“How unhappy does one have to be before living seems worse than dying?”
Source: Touching from a Distance: Ian Curtis and Joy Division
Il est plus facile de paraître digne des emplois qu'on n'a pas que de ceux que l'on exerce.
Maxim 164.
Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims (1665–1678)
Il est plus facile de paraître digne des emplois qu'on n'a pas que de ceux que l'on exerce.
Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims (1665–1678)
“How unhappy does one have to be before living seems worse than dying?”
Source: Touching from a Distance: Ian Curtis and Joy Division
“And it always seems to stick in one's mind more than reality does.”
As quoted in "Terry Gilliam reflects to Dreams about the making of Dr Parnassus" by Phil Stubbs http://www.smart.co.uk/dreams/parntgrf.htm
Context: We read Dover Books, because you can steal from them. The medieval imagery and iconography is so good for the imagination. Trying to describe the world, trying to describe the cosmos, trying to put it down in neat orderly fashion, unlike reality. And it always seems to stick in one's mind more than reality does.
“He that works and does some Poem, not he that merely says one, is worthy of the name of Poet.”
Introduction to Cromwell's Letters and Speeches (1845).
1840s
Source: The Virtue of Selfishness: A New Concept of Egoism
“…the future will one day be the present and will seem as unimportant as the present does now.”
Source: The Summing Up (1938), p. 51
“Not using faults does not mean one does not have them.”
Voces (1943)
Part 2, section 6.
The Cunning Man (1994)
Context: The ironist is not bitter, he does not seek to undercut everything that seems worthy or serious, he scorns the cheap scoring-off of the wisecracker. He stands, so to speak, somewhat at one side, observes and speaks with a moderation which is occasionally embellished with a flash of controlled exaggeration. He speaks from a certain depth, and thus he is not of the same nature as the wit, who so often speaks from the tongue and no deeper. The wit's desire is to be funny; the ironist is only funny as a secondary achievement.