Posts Tagged ‘F.L. Lucas’
Quote of the Day
Many writers and thinkers in the last century and a half, still more in the last half century, have chosen, whether consciously or not, the side of the irrational—mauvais clercs, in my belief, if ever there were. Many men of action have done the same…Those who take the other side, the side of reason—who try to believe nothing unless there are rational grounds for it, and otherwise to be content with probabilities, or frank uncertainty, may be wrong—or they may be right, yet destined to defeat. None of them can live long enough to know. But at least they will not have frivolously undermined the foundations of their own civilization.
Quote of the Day
Few moderns are good mental economists; given the limited capacity of human memory, the limited length of human life, it becomes ever more vital to select; and to find a principle of selection…It seems to me, then, mere common sense never to undertake a piece of work, or read a book, without asking, “Is it worth the amount of life it will cost?”
The last words of Lady Mary
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu is not a figure that most of us would choose to envy. Her experience led her to the grim conclusions that marriage was “a lottery where there are (at the lowest computation) ten thousand blanks to one prize”; that “the pursuit of pleasure will ever be attended with pain”; that “we are no more free agents than the queen of clubs when she victoriously takes prisoner the knave of hearts.” Her own marriage failed; her son became an affliction and an ignominy; in her old age she records that for eleven years she had not dared look in her mirror. She had once called life “a dull road.” And yet, dying, she is said to have murmured: “It has all been very interesting; it has all been very interesting.” Even in death she kept her vital interest in the eternal strangeness of life. There are worse last words.
F. L. Lucas on the sources of happiness
Vitality of mind and body; the activity to employ and maintain them; the zest and curiosity that they can animate; freedom to travel widely in nature and art, in countries of the world and countries of the mind; human affections; and the gift of gaiety—these seem to me, then, the main causes of happiness. I am surprised to find how few and simple they are.
(And for extra credit, please see Lin Yutang on the philosophy of half-and-half, which remains closest, after all these years, to my own personal idea of happiness.)
Alec Nevala-Lee 