Saved From Lies

More writers fail from lack of character than from lack of intelligence. Technical solidity is not attained without at least some persistence.
— Ezra Pound, ABC of Reading, p. 193.

There can be knowledge of the diabolical, but no belief in it, for more of the diabolical than there is does not exist.
—Franz Kafka, Dearest Father

The hollow which the work of genius has burned into our surroundings is a good place in which to put one's little light. Therefore the inspiration that emanates from genius, the universal inspiration that doesn't only drive one to imitation.
— Franz Kafka, Diaries: 1910-1913, p. 273, from September 15, 1912.

Every race, every art has its hypocrisy. The world is fed with a little truth and many lies. The human mind is feeble : pure truth agrees with it but ill : its religion, its morality, its states, its poets, its artists, must all be presented to it swathed in lies. These lies are adapted to the mind of each race : they vary from one to the other : it is they that make it so difficult for nations to understand each other, and so easy for them to despise each other. Truth is the same for all of us : but every nation has its own lie, which it calls its idealism : every creature therein breathes it from birth to death: it has become a condition of life : there are only a few men of genius who can break free from it through heroic moments of crisis, when they are alone in the free world of their thoughts.
— Romain Rolland, Jean-Christophe, "Lightning Strikes Christophe."

The smallest hope, a base continuing to exist, is enough for the antihero's future: leave him, says our age, leave him where mankind is in its history, at a crossroads, in a dilemma, with all to lose and only more of the same to win; let him survive, but give him no direction, no reward; because we too are waiting, in our solitary rooms where the telephone never rings, waiting for this girl, this truth, this crystal of humanity, this reality lost through imagination, to return; and to say she returns is a lie.
     But the maze has no center. An ending is no more than a point in sequence, a snip of the cutting shears.
— John Fowles, The Magus, Chapter 78, p. 595.

There is a Catholic circle ready to give an eager welcome to whoever enters it. Well, I do not want to be adopted into a circle, to live among people who say "we" and to be part of an "us," to find I am "at home" in any human milieu whatever it may be. In saying I do not want this, I am expressing myself badly, for I should like it very much; I should find it all delightful. But I feel that it is necessary and ordained that I should be alone, a stranger and an exile in relation to every human circle without exception.
— Simone Weil, Waiting On God, pp. 22-23, "Letter to Father Perrin."

The danger is not lest the soul should doubt whether there is bread, but lest, by a lie, it should persuade itself that it is not hungry. It can only persuade itself of this by lying, for the reality of its hunger is not a belief, it is a certainty.
     We all know that there is no true good here below, that everything which appears to be good in this world is finite, limited, wears out and, once worn out, leaves necessity exposed in all its nakedness. Every human being has probably had some lucid moments in his life when he has definitely acknowledged to himself that there is no final good here below. But as soon as we have seen this truth we cover it up with lies. Many people even take pleasure in proclaiming it, seeking a morbid joy in their sadness, without ever having been able to bear facing it for a second. Men feel that there is a mortal danger in facing this truth squarely for any length of time. That is true. Such knowledge strikes more surely than a sword; it inflicts a death which is more frightening than that of the body. After a time it kills everything within us which constitutes our ego. In order to bear it we have to love truth more than life itself. Those who do this turn away from the fleeting things of time with all their souls, to use the expression of Plato.
— Simone Weil, Waiting On God, p. 162, "Forms of the Implicit Love of God."

Better, however, to be foolish with happiness than foolish with misfortune, better to dance awkwardly than walk lamely.
— Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra, Part IV, No. 19, p.331