Posts Tagged ‘Bertrand Russell’
Quote of the Day
It is such infinite delight to know that we still have the best things to do.
—Katherine Mansfield, in a letter to Bertrand Russell
“Such fumbling attempts were a waste of time…”
Very gradually I have discovered ways of writing with a minimum of worry and anxiety. When I was young each fresh piece of serious work used to seem to me for a time—perhaps a long time—to be beyond my powers. I would fret myself into a nervous state from fear that it was never going to come right. I would make one unsatisfying attempt after another, and in the end have to discard them all. At last I found that such fumbling attempts were a waste of time. It appeared that after first contemplating a book on some subject, and after giving serious preliminary attention to it, I needed a period of sub-conscious incubation which could not be hurried and was if anything impeded by deliberate thinking. Sometimes I would find, after a time, that I had made a mistake, and that I could not write the book I had had in mind. But often I was more fortunate. Having, by a time of very intense concentration, planted the problem in my sub-consciousness, it would germinate underground until, suddenly, the solution emerged with blinding clarity, so that it only remained to write down what had appeared as if in a revelation.
Quote of the Day
There are two motives for reading a book: one, that you enjoy it; the other, that you can boast about it.
Quote of the Day
To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness.
