
Conversation of 1934
Personal Recollections (1981)
Discourses on the Condition of the Great
Context: All the excesses, all the violence, and all the vanity of great men, come from the fact that they know not what they are: it being difficult for those who regard themselves at heart as equal with all men... For this it is necessary for one to forget himself, and to believe that he has some real excellence above them, in which consists this illusion that I am endeavoring to discover to you.
Conversation of 1934
Personal Recollections (1981)
Source: Book, « Ode Marítima »
“All men can do great things, if they know what great things are.”
Great Things
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part XI - Cash and Credit
As quoted in Nava-Vēda : God and Man (Nara and Narayan) (1968) by M. B. Raja Rao, p. 229
On facing abuse head on in “Meena Kandasamy interview: ‘I don’t know if I’m idiotic – or courageous’” https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/meena-kandasamy-interview-i-don-t-know-if-i-m-idiotic-or-courageous-9238644.html in the Independent (2014 Apr 6)
“Quomodo sedet sola civitas. Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.”
Epilogue
Brideshead Revisited (1945)
“As men we are all cursed by the violence in our natures.”
Men like the Moidart — aye, and Winterbourne — revel in that nature. We do not. We struggle to overcome it.
Source: Rigante series, Stormrider, Ch. 7
“All is vanity and everybody's vain. Women are terribly vain. So are men — more so, if possible.”
"On Vanity and Vanities".
Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow (1886)
“Because it all comes from inside. As a matter of fact, that’s where it stays.”
Oui interview (1979)
Context: Organized religions by their very natures are misleading. The bottom line is always money. What that’s got to do with your spiritual well-being still eludes me. It’s always the bucks, no matter how they disguise it. If you need that sort of assistance to keep yourself together, you may be paying a higher rate to a fake religion than you would to a psychotherapist. Which is not to say that a psychotherapist is going to give you any better value per dollar either. lf you’re going to deal with reality, you’re going to have to make one big discovery: Reality is something that belongs to you as an individual. If you wanna grow up, which most people don’t, the thing to do is take responsibility for your own reality and deal with it on your own terms. Don’t expect that because you pay some money to somebody else or take a pledge or join a club or run down the street or wear a special bunch of clothes or play a certain sport or even drink Perrier water, it’s going to take care of everything for you. Because it all comes from inside. As a matter of fact, that’s where it stays.