"What is to give light must endure burning."
— Victor Frankl, The Doctor and the Soul
Even wordly people, rather than study many things at once without really becoming accomplished in any of them, should just do one thing well and study enough to be able to do it even in the presence of others.
How much the more is this true of the supramundane Buddha Dharma: it is a way which since beginningless past has not been cultivated or practiced; and therefore, it is now still far from us. Our natures too are dull. In this exalted and free-reaching Buddha Dharma, if one takes on too many things at once, it will be impossible to perfect even one thing. Even concentrating solely on one thing, those whose faculties and capacity are dull by nature will have difficulty in thoroughly mastering it. Strive, students, to concentrate on one thing alone.
Eja asked, "If so, then what thing, what practice in the Buddha Dharma, should we be solely devoted to cultivating?"
Dogen replied, "Although it should be in accord with potentiality and conform to capability, that which is now transmitted and solely practiced in the school of the Patriarchs is sitting meditation. This practice takes all potentials and is a method which can be practiced by those of superior, muddling, and inferior faculties alike.
— Dogen, Record of Things Heard (Shobogenzo-zumnoki), Thomas Cleary (tr.), pp. 12-13.
"One ought not depend upon the instruction of others, the words of the Sagely Teaching, or the inner principle of witnessing the Way. Born in the morning, dead at night; the fact that people we saw yesterday do not exist today is something that meets the eye everywhere and is close about the ears. This is something one sees and hears in respect to others: as one applies it to his own bodily self and considers what is true, even if one may expect a life of seventy or eighty years, in accordance with the truth that one must eventually die, one does die.
— Dogen, Ibid., pp. 40-41.
When we look at the record of that master's deeds [Zen Master T'an Hsia T'ien Jan], when he sat it was always with dignity, when he stood it was always with proper bearing; he was always as though facing an honored guest. Even when sitting down for a little while he always crossed his legs and folded his hands; he took care of the community property as one would take care of his eyes. Whenever there were any diligent in practice, he would not fail to praise them; even a little bit of good he deemed important. His ordinary mode of action was exceptionally excellent; his record is set down as a mirror and guide for the monasteries.
— Dogen, Ibid., p. 63.
Pourvou Que Ca Doure
Life grows, life is not made; you can make
death. Neither were the sun nor the stars created,
But grew from what grew before. Without the corruption
of plants and corpses life could not grow.
Look around you at civilization decaying and sick:
look at science, corrupted
To be death's bawd; and art — painting and sculpture,
that had some dignity —
Corrupted into the show-off antics of an imbecile
child; and statecraft
Into the democratic gestures of a gin-muddled
butcher-boy: look all around you,
And praise the solitary hawk-flights of God, and
say, what a stinking of famous corpses
To fertilize the fields of the human
future ... if man's back holds.
— Robinson Jeffers, in In This Wild Water: The Suppressed Poems of Robinson Jeffers, James Shebl, pp. 73-74.
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Monday, July 5, 2010
Negative Affirmation
I read the other day some verse written by an eminent painter which were original not conventional. Always the soul hears an admonition in such lines, let the subject be what it may. The sentiment they instil is of more value than any thought they may contain. To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men, — that is genius. Speak your latent conviction, and it shall be universal sense; for always the inmost becomes the outmost — amd our first thought is rendered back to us by the trumpets of the Last Judgment. Familiar as the voice of the mind is to each, the highest merit we ascribe to Moses, Plato and Milton is that they set at naught books and traditions and spoke not what men, but what they thought. A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the lustre of the firmament of bards and sages. Yet he dismisses without notice his thought, because it is his. In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts; they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty. Great works of art have no more affecting lesson for us than this. They teach us to abide by our spontaneous impression with good-humored inflexibility then most when the whole cry of voices is on the other side. Else to-morrow a stranger will say with masterly good sense precisely what we have thought and felt all the time, and we shall be forced to take with shame our own opinion from another.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson, from "Self-Reliance," in Masterworks of Prose, Parkinson (ed.), p. 213.
We cannot grant that a god, or even a man, proceeds from a gymnastic climaxed by a moan. It is curious that at the end of such a long period of time, "evolution" has not managed to perfect another formula. Why should it take the trouble, moreover, when the one in force functions so well and suits everybody? Let there be no mistake: life in itself is not in question, life is as mysterious and enervating as could be wished. What is not so is the exercise in question, of an inadmissible facility, given the consequences. When we know what fate permits each man, we remain stunned by the disproportion between a moment's oblivion and the prodigious quantity of disgraces which result from it. The more one finds that the only men who have understood anything about it are those who have opted for orgy or for asceticism, the debauched or the castrated.
— E. M. Cioran, The New Gods, pp. 11-12.
....Now, as experience teaches, there exists no being more odious than our neighbor. The fact of knowing him to be so close in space keeps us from breathing and makes our days and our nights equally unfeasible. Try as we will to brood upon his ruin, he is there, hideously present. To suppress him is the impulse of every thought; when we finally determine to do so, a spasm of cowardice grips us, just before the act. Thus, we are the potential murderers of those who live beside us, and from incapacity to be the actual ones comes our torment, our bitterness, dilettantes and eunuchs of bloodshed that we are.
— E. M. Cioran, Ibid., p. 14.
Blessed was that age when solitaries could plumb their depths without seeming obsessed, deranged. Their imbalance was not assigned a negative coeffecient, as is the case for us. They would sacrifice ten, twenty years, a whole life, for a foreboding, for a flash of the absolute. The word "depth" has a meaning only in connection with epochs when the monk was considered as the noblest human exemplar. No one will gainsay the fact that he is in the process of disappearing. For centuries, he has done no more than survive himself. To whom would he address himself, in a universe which calls him a "parasite"? In Tibet, the last country where monks still matter, they have been ruled out. Yet it was a rare consolation to think that thousands and thousands of hermits could be meditating there, today, on the themes of the prajñaparamita. Even if it had only odious aspects, monasticism would still be worth more than any other ideal. Now more than ever, we should build monasteries ... for those who believe in nothing. Where to escape? There no longer exists a single place where we can professionally execrate this world.
— E. M. Cioran, Ibid., p. 38.
Think of God and not religion, of ecstasy and not mysticism. The difference between the theoretician of faith and the believer is as great as between the psychiatrist and the psychotic.
— E. M. Cioran, from "Strangled Thoughts," in Ibid., p. 85.
To want fame is to prefer dying scorned than forgotten.
E. M. Cioran, Ibid., p. 87.
What they ask you for is actions, proofs, works, and all you can produce are transformed tears.
E. M. Cioran, Ibid., p. 88
Chatter: any conversation with someone who has not suffered.
E. M. Cioran, Ibid., p. 101.
The mediocrity of my grief at funerals. Impossible to feel sorry for the deceased; conversely, every birth casts me into consternation. It is incomprehensible, it is insane that people can show a baby, that they can exhibit this potential disaster and rejoice over it.
E. M. Cioran, Ibid., p. 102.
What place do we occupy in the "universe"? A point, if that! Why reproach ourselves when we make this observation, we grow calm at once: henceforth, no more bother, no more frenzy, metaphysical or otherwise. And then that point dilates, swells, substitutes itself for space. And everything begins all over again.
E. M. Cioran, Ibid., p. 113.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson, from "Self-Reliance," in Masterworks of Prose, Parkinson (ed.), p. 213.
We cannot grant that a god, or even a man, proceeds from a gymnastic climaxed by a moan. It is curious that at the end of such a long period of time, "evolution" has not managed to perfect another formula. Why should it take the trouble, moreover, when the one in force functions so well and suits everybody? Let there be no mistake: life in itself is not in question, life is as mysterious and enervating as could be wished. What is not so is the exercise in question, of an inadmissible facility, given the consequences. When we know what fate permits each man, we remain stunned by the disproportion between a moment's oblivion and the prodigious quantity of disgraces which result from it. The more one finds that the only men who have understood anything about it are those who have opted for orgy or for asceticism, the debauched or the castrated.
— E. M. Cioran, The New Gods, pp. 11-12.
....Now, as experience teaches, there exists no being more odious than our neighbor. The fact of knowing him to be so close in space keeps us from breathing and makes our days and our nights equally unfeasible. Try as we will to brood upon his ruin, he is there, hideously present. To suppress him is the impulse of every thought; when we finally determine to do so, a spasm of cowardice grips us, just before the act. Thus, we are the potential murderers of those who live beside us, and from incapacity to be the actual ones comes our torment, our bitterness, dilettantes and eunuchs of bloodshed that we are.
— E. M. Cioran, Ibid., p. 14.
Blessed was that age when solitaries could plumb their depths without seeming obsessed, deranged. Their imbalance was not assigned a negative coeffecient, as is the case for us. They would sacrifice ten, twenty years, a whole life, for a foreboding, for a flash of the absolute. The word "depth" has a meaning only in connection with epochs when the monk was considered as the noblest human exemplar. No one will gainsay the fact that he is in the process of disappearing. For centuries, he has done no more than survive himself. To whom would he address himself, in a universe which calls him a "parasite"? In Tibet, the last country where monks still matter, they have been ruled out. Yet it was a rare consolation to think that thousands and thousands of hermits could be meditating there, today, on the themes of the prajñaparamita. Even if it had only odious aspects, monasticism would still be worth more than any other ideal. Now more than ever, we should build monasteries ... for those who believe in nothing. Where to escape? There no longer exists a single place where we can professionally execrate this world.
— E. M. Cioran, Ibid., p. 38.
Think of God and not religion, of ecstasy and not mysticism. The difference between the theoretician of faith and the believer is as great as between the psychiatrist and the psychotic.
— E. M. Cioran, from "Strangled Thoughts," in Ibid., p. 85.
To want fame is to prefer dying scorned than forgotten.
E. M. Cioran, Ibid., p. 87.
What they ask you for is actions, proofs, works, and all you can produce are transformed tears.
E. M. Cioran, Ibid., p. 88
Chatter: any conversation with someone who has not suffered.
E. M. Cioran, Ibid., p. 101.
The mediocrity of my grief at funerals. Impossible to feel sorry for the deceased; conversely, every birth casts me into consternation. It is incomprehensible, it is insane that people can show a baby, that they can exhibit this potential disaster and rejoice over it.
E. M. Cioran, Ibid., p. 102.
What place do we occupy in the "universe"? A point, if that! Why reproach ourselves when we make this observation, we grow calm at once: henceforth, no more bother, no more frenzy, metaphysical or otherwise. And then that point dilates, swells, substitutes itself for space. And everything begins all over again.
E. M. Cioran, Ibid., p. 113.
Sunday, July 4, 2010
An Honest Game
Sir, — I am sensible that I need even your talents to apologize for the freedom I now take; but I have a plea which, however simply urged, will, with a mind like yours, Sir, procure me pardon: I am one of those outcasts on the world who are without a friend, without employment, and without bread.
Pardon me a short preface. I had a partial father who gave me a better education than his broken fortune would have allowed; and a better than was necessary, as he could give me that only. I was designed for the profession of physics; but not having wherewithal to complete the requisite studies, the design but served to convince me of a parent's affection, and the error it had occasioned. In April last, I came to London, with three pounds, and flattered myself this would be sufficient to supply me with the common necessaries of life, till my abilities should procure me more; of these I had the highest opinion, and a poetical vanity contributed to my delusion. I knew little of the world, and had read books only: I wrote, and fancied perfection in my compositions; when I wanted bread they promised me affluence, and soothed me with dreams of reputation, whilst my appearance subjected me to contempt.
Time, reflection, and want, have shown me my mistake. I see my trifles in that which I think the true light; and whilst I deem them such, have yet the opinion that holds them superior to the common run of poetical publication....
Can you, Sir, in any degree, aid me with propriety? Will you ask any demonstrations of my veracity? I have imposed upon myself, but I have been guilty of no other imposition. Let me, if possible, interest your compassion. I know those of rank and fortune are teased with frequent petitions, and are compelled to refuse the requests even of those whom they know to be in distress; it is, therefore, with a distant hope I ventured to solicit such favour; but you will forgive me, Sir, if you do not think proper to relieve. It is impossible that sentiments like yours can proceed from any but a humane and generous heart.
I will call upon you, Sir, to-morrow, and if I have not the happiness to obtain credit with you, I must submit to my fate. My existence is a pain to myself, and every one near and dear to me are distressed in my distress.
G. Crabbe
— George Crabbe, "A Letter to Burke," 1781, in The Oxford Book of English Prose, Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch (sel. & ed.), pp. 508-509.
I passed some time in Poet's Corner, which occupies an end of one of the transepts or cross aisles of the abbey. The monuments are generally simple; for the lives of literary men afford no striking themes for the sculptor. Shakespeare and Addison have statues erected to their memories; but the greater part have busts, medallions, and sometimes mere inscriptions. Notwithstanding the simplicity of these memorials, I have always observed that the visitors to the abbey remained longest about them. A kinder and fonder feeling takes place of that cold curiosity or vague admiration with which they gaze on the splendid monuments of the great and heroic. They linger about these as about the tombs of friends and companions; for indeed there is something of companionship between the author and the reader. Other men are known to posterity only through the medium of history, which is continually growing faint and obscure; but the intercourse between the author and his fellow men is ever new, active, and immediate. He has lived for them more than for himself; he has sacrificed surrounding enjoyments, and shut himself up from the delights of social life, that he might the more intimately commune with distant minds and distant ages. Well may the world cherish his renown; for it has been purchased, not by deeds of violence and blood, but by the diligent dispensation of pleasure. Well may posterity be grateful to his memory; for he has left it an inheritance, not of empty names and sounding actions, but whole treasures of wisdom, bright gems of thought, and golden veins of language.
— Washington Irving, "Poet's Corner," from The Sketch Book, in Ibid., pp. 596-597.
Suppose it were perfectly certain that the life and fortune of every one of us would, one day or other, depend upon his winning or losing a game of chess.
Don't you think that we should all consider it to be a primary duty to learn at least the names and the moves of the pieces; to have a notion of a gambit, and a keen eye for all the means of giving and taking out of check? Do you not think that we should look with disapprobation amounting to scorn, upon the father who allowed his son, or the state which allowed its members, to grow up without knowing a pawn from a knight?
Yet it is a very plain and elementary truth, that the life, the fortune, and the happiness of every one of us, and, more or less, of those who are connected with us, do depend upon our knowing something of the rules of a game infinitely more difficult and complicated than chess. It is a game which has been played for untold ages, every man and woman of us being one of the two players in a game of his or her own. The chess-board is the world, the pieces are the phenomena of the world, the rules of the game are what we call the laws of Nature.
The player on the other side is hidden from us. We know that his play is always fair, just, and patient. But also we know, to our cost, that he never overlooks a mistake, or makes the smallest allowance for ignorance. To the man who plays well, the highest stakes are paid, with that sort of overflowing generosity with which the strong shows delight in strength. And one who plays ill is checkmateted — without haste, but without remorse.
My metaphor will remind some of you of the famous picture in which Retzsch has depicted Satan playing chess with man for his soul. Substitute for the mocking fiend in that picture, a calm, strong angel who is playing for love, as we say, and would rather lose than win — and I should accept it as an image of human life.
— Thomas Henry Huxley, "A Game of Chess," Lay Sermons, in Ibid., pp. 822-823.
I confess that I do not see why the very existence of an invisible world may not in part depend on the personal response which any one of us may make to the religious appeal. God himself, in short, may draw vital strength and increase of very being from our fidelity. For my part, I do not know what the sweat and blood and tragedy of this life mean, if they mean anything short of this. If this life be not a real fight, in which something is eternally gained for the universe by success, it is no better than a game of private theatricals from which one may withdraw at will — as if there were something really wild in the universe which we, with all our idealities and faithfulness, are needed to redeem; and first of all to redeem our own hearts from atheisms and fears. For such a half-wild, half-saved universe our nature is adapted. The deepest thing in our nature is ... this dumb region of the heart in which we dwell alone with our willingnesses and unwillingnesses, our faiths and fears. As though the cracks and crannies of caverns those waters exude from the earth's bosom which then form the fountainheads of springs, so in these crepuscular depths of personality the sources of all our outer deeds and decisions take their rise. Here is our deepest organ of communication with the nature of things; and compared with these concrete movements of our soul all abstract statements and scientific arguments — the veto, for example, which the strict positivist pronounces upon our faith — sound to us like mere chatterings of the teeth....
These then are my last words to you: Be not afraid of life. Believe that life is worth living, and your belief will help create the fact. The 'scientific proof' that you are right may not be clear before the day of judgment (or some stage of being which that expression may serve to symbolize) is reached. But the faithful fighters of this hour, or the beings that then and there will represent them, may then turn to the faint-hearted, who here decline to go on, with words like those with which Henry IV greeted the tardy Crillon after a great victory had been gained: 'Hang yourself, brave Crillon! we fought at Arques, and you were not there.'
— William James, The Will to Believe, in Ibid., pp. 893-894.
Pardon me a short preface. I had a partial father who gave me a better education than his broken fortune would have allowed; and a better than was necessary, as he could give me that only. I was designed for the profession of physics; but not having wherewithal to complete the requisite studies, the design but served to convince me of a parent's affection, and the error it had occasioned. In April last, I came to London, with three pounds, and flattered myself this would be sufficient to supply me with the common necessaries of life, till my abilities should procure me more; of these I had the highest opinion, and a poetical vanity contributed to my delusion. I knew little of the world, and had read books only: I wrote, and fancied perfection in my compositions; when I wanted bread they promised me affluence, and soothed me with dreams of reputation, whilst my appearance subjected me to contempt.
Time, reflection, and want, have shown me my mistake. I see my trifles in that which I think the true light; and whilst I deem them such, have yet the opinion that holds them superior to the common run of poetical publication....
Can you, Sir, in any degree, aid me with propriety? Will you ask any demonstrations of my veracity? I have imposed upon myself, but I have been guilty of no other imposition. Let me, if possible, interest your compassion. I know those of rank and fortune are teased with frequent petitions, and are compelled to refuse the requests even of those whom they know to be in distress; it is, therefore, with a distant hope I ventured to solicit such favour; but you will forgive me, Sir, if you do not think proper to relieve. It is impossible that sentiments like yours can proceed from any but a humane and generous heart.
I will call upon you, Sir, to-morrow, and if I have not the happiness to obtain credit with you, I must submit to my fate. My existence is a pain to myself, and every one near and dear to me are distressed in my distress.
G. Crabbe
— George Crabbe, "A Letter to Burke," 1781, in The Oxford Book of English Prose, Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch (sel. & ed.), pp. 508-509.
I passed some time in Poet's Corner, which occupies an end of one of the transepts or cross aisles of the abbey. The monuments are generally simple; for the lives of literary men afford no striking themes for the sculptor. Shakespeare and Addison have statues erected to their memories; but the greater part have busts, medallions, and sometimes mere inscriptions. Notwithstanding the simplicity of these memorials, I have always observed that the visitors to the abbey remained longest about them. A kinder and fonder feeling takes place of that cold curiosity or vague admiration with which they gaze on the splendid monuments of the great and heroic. They linger about these as about the tombs of friends and companions; for indeed there is something of companionship between the author and the reader. Other men are known to posterity only through the medium of history, which is continually growing faint and obscure; but the intercourse between the author and his fellow men is ever new, active, and immediate. He has lived for them more than for himself; he has sacrificed surrounding enjoyments, and shut himself up from the delights of social life, that he might the more intimately commune with distant minds and distant ages. Well may the world cherish his renown; for it has been purchased, not by deeds of violence and blood, but by the diligent dispensation of pleasure. Well may posterity be grateful to his memory; for he has left it an inheritance, not of empty names and sounding actions, but whole treasures of wisdom, bright gems of thought, and golden veins of language.
— Washington Irving, "Poet's Corner," from The Sketch Book, in Ibid., pp. 596-597.
Suppose it were perfectly certain that the life and fortune of every one of us would, one day or other, depend upon his winning or losing a game of chess.
Don't you think that we should all consider it to be a primary duty to learn at least the names and the moves of the pieces; to have a notion of a gambit, and a keen eye for all the means of giving and taking out of check? Do you not think that we should look with disapprobation amounting to scorn, upon the father who allowed his son, or the state which allowed its members, to grow up without knowing a pawn from a knight?
Yet it is a very plain and elementary truth, that the life, the fortune, and the happiness of every one of us, and, more or less, of those who are connected with us, do depend upon our knowing something of the rules of a game infinitely more difficult and complicated than chess. It is a game which has been played for untold ages, every man and woman of us being one of the two players in a game of his or her own. The chess-board is the world, the pieces are the phenomena of the world, the rules of the game are what we call the laws of Nature.
The player on the other side is hidden from us. We know that his play is always fair, just, and patient. But also we know, to our cost, that he never overlooks a mistake, or makes the smallest allowance for ignorance. To the man who plays well, the highest stakes are paid, with that sort of overflowing generosity with which the strong shows delight in strength. And one who plays ill is checkmateted — without haste, but without remorse.
My metaphor will remind some of you of the famous picture in which Retzsch has depicted Satan playing chess with man for his soul. Substitute for the mocking fiend in that picture, a calm, strong angel who is playing for love, as we say, and would rather lose than win — and I should accept it as an image of human life.
— Thomas Henry Huxley, "A Game of Chess," Lay Sermons, in Ibid., pp. 822-823.
I confess that I do not see why the very existence of an invisible world may not in part depend on the personal response which any one of us may make to the religious appeal. God himself, in short, may draw vital strength and increase of very being from our fidelity. For my part, I do not know what the sweat and blood and tragedy of this life mean, if they mean anything short of this. If this life be not a real fight, in which something is eternally gained for the universe by success, it is no better than a game of private theatricals from which one may withdraw at will — as if there were something really wild in the universe which we, with all our idealities and faithfulness, are needed to redeem; and first of all to redeem our own hearts from atheisms and fears. For such a half-wild, half-saved universe our nature is adapted. The deepest thing in our nature is ... this dumb region of the heart in which we dwell alone with our willingnesses and unwillingnesses, our faiths and fears. As though the cracks and crannies of caverns those waters exude from the earth's bosom which then form the fountainheads of springs, so in these crepuscular depths of personality the sources of all our outer deeds and decisions take their rise. Here is our deepest organ of communication with the nature of things; and compared with these concrete movements of our soul all abstract statements and scientific arguments — the veto, for example, which the strict positivist pronounces upon our faith — sound to us like mere chatterings of the teeth....
These then are my last words to you: Be not afraid of life. Believe that life is worth living, and your belief will help create the fact. The 'scientific proof' that you are right may not be clear before the day of judgment (or some stage of being which that expression may serve to symbolize) is reached. But the faithful fighters of this hour, or the beings that then and there will represent them, may then turn to the faint-hearted, who here decline to go on, with words like those with which Henry IV greeted the tardy Crillon after a great victory had been gained: 'Hang yourself, brave Crillon! we fought at Arques, and you were not there.'
— William James, The Will to Believe, in Ibid., pp. 893-894.
Saturday, July 3, 2010
Competent Conduct
The truth of the matter is, that neither he who is a Fop in the world, is a fit man to be alone; nor he who has set his heart much upon the world, though he have never so much understanding; so that Solitude can be well fitted and set right but upon a very few persons. They must have enough knowledge of the World to see the vanity of it, and enough Virtue to despise all vanity; if the Mind be possessed with any Lust or Passions a man had better be in a Fair than in a wood alone. They may, like petty Thieves, cheat us perhaps, and pick our pockets in the midst of company, but like Robbers they use to strip and bind, or murder us when they catch us alone. This is but to retreat from Men, and fall into the hands of Devils. 'Tis like the punishment of Parricides among the Romans, to be sowed into a Bag with an Ape, a Dog, and a Serpent. The first work therefore that a man must do to make himself capable of the good of Solitude is the very Eradication of all Lusts, for how is it possible for a Man to enjoy himself while his Affections are tied to things without Himself? In the second place, he must learn the Art and get the Habit of Thinking; for this, too, no less than well speaking, depends upon much practice, and Cogitation is the thing which distinguishes the Solitude of a God from a wild Beast. Now because the soul of Man is not by its own Nature or observation furnished with sufficient Materials to work upon, it is necessary for it to have continual recourse to Learning and Books for fresh supplies, so that the solitary Life will grow indigent, and be ready to starve without them; but if once we be throughly engaged in the Love of Letters, instead of being wearied with the length of any day we shall only complain of the shortness of our whole life.
O vita, stulto longa, sapienti brevis!
O Life, long to the Fool, short to the Wise!
The first Minister of State has not so much business in public as a wise man has in private; if the one have little liesure to be in company; the one has but part of the affairs of one Nation, the other all the works of God and Nature under his consideration. There is no saying shocks me so much as that which I hear very often, That a man does not know how to pass his Time. 'Twould have been but ill-spoken by Methusalem in the Nine hundred sixty-ninth year of his Life; so far it is from us, who have not time enough to attain to the utmost perfection of any part of any science, to have cause to complain that we are forced to be idle for want of work. But this, you'll say, is work only for the Learned; others are not capable either of the employments or divertisements that arrive from Letters. I know they are not, and therefore cannot much recommend Solitude to a man totally illiterate.
— Abraham Cowley, from "Of Solitude," in Essays, in The Oxford Book of English Prose, Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch (sel. & ed.), pp. 250-252.
In hope of giving longevity to that which its own nature forbids to be immortal, I have devoted this book, the labour of years, to the honour of my country, that we may no longer yield the palm of philology, without a contest, to the nations of the continent. The chief glory of every people arises from its authors: whether I shall add any thing by my own writings to the reputation of English literature, must be left to time: much of my life has been lost under the pressures of disease; much has been trifled away; and much has always been spent in provision for the day that was passing over me; but I shall not think my employment useless or ignoble, if by my assistance foreign nations, and distant ages, gain access to the propagators of knowledge, and understand the teachers of truth; if my labours afford light to the repositories of science, and add celebrity to Bacon, to Hooker, to Milton, and to Boyle.
— Samuel Johnson, "On His Dictionary," from the Preface to the English Dictionary, in Ibid., p. 409.
To the Right Honourable the Earl of Chesterfield
February 7, 1755.
My Lord,
I have been lately informed, by the proprietor of the World, that two papers, in which my Dictionary is recommended to the publick, were written by your Lordship. To be so distinguished, is an honour, which, being very little accustomed to favours from the great, I know not well how to receive, or in what terms to acknowledge.
When, upon some slight encouragement, I first visited your Lordship, I was overpowered, like the rest of mankind, by the enchantment of your address; and could not forbear to wish that I might boast myself Le vainqueur du vainqueur de la terre; — that I might obtain that regard for which I saw the world contending; but I found my attendence so little encouraged, that neither pride nor modesty would suffice me to continue it. When I had once addressed your Lordship in publick, I had exhausted all the art of pleasing which a retired and uncourtly scholar can possess. I had done all that I could; and no man is well pleased to have his all neglected, be it ever so little.
Seven years, my Lord, have now past, since I waited in your outward rooms, or was repulsed from your door; during which time I have been pushing my work through difficulties, of which it is useless to complain, and have brought it, at last, to the verge of publication, without one act of assistance, one word of encouragement, or one smile of favour. Such treatment I did not expect, for I never had a Patron before.
The shepherd in Virgil grew at last acquainted with Love, and found him a native of the rocks.
Is not a Patron, my Lord, one who looks with unconcern on a man struggling for life in the water, and, when he has reached ground, encumbers him with help? The notice which you have been pleased to take of my labours, had it been delayed till I am indifferent, and cannot enjoy it; till I am solitary, and cannot impart it; till I am known, and do not want it. I hope it is no very cynical asperity not to confess obligations where no benefit has been received, or to be unwilling that the publick should consider me as owing that to a Patron, which Providence has enabled me to do for myself.
Having carried on my work thus far with so little obligation to any favourer of learning, I shall not be disappointed though I should conclude it, if less be possible, with less; for I have been long wakened from the dream of hope, in which I once boasted myself with so much exultation.
My Lord,
Your Lordship's most humble,
Most obedient servant,
Sam. Johnson.
— Samuel Johnson, Letter to Lord Chesterfield, in Ibid., pp. 411-413.
O vita, stulto longa, sapienti brevis!
O Life, long to the Fool, short to the Wise!
The first Minister of State has not so much business in public as a wise man has in private; if the one have little liesure to be in company; the one has but part of the affairs of one Nation, the other all the works of God and Nature under his consideration. There is no saying shocks me so much as that which I hear very often, That a man does not know how to pass his Time. 'Twould have been but ill-spoken by Methusalem in the Nine hundred sixty-ninth year of his Life; so far it is from us, who have not time enough to attain to the utmost perfection of any part of any science, to have cause to complain that we are forced to be idle for want of work. But this, you'll say, is work only for the Learned; others are not capable either of the employments or divertisements that arrive from Letters. I know they are not, and therefore cannot much recommend Solitude to a man totally illiterate.
— Abraham Cowley, from "Of Solitude," in Essays, in The Oxford Book of English Prose, Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch (sel. & ed.), pp. 250-252.
In hope of giving longevity to that which its own nature forbids to be immortal, I have devoted this book, the labour of years, to the honour of my country, that we may no longer yield the palm of philology, without a contest, to the nations of the continent. The chief glory of every people arises from its authors: whether I shall add any thing by my own writings to the reputation of English literature, must be left to time: much of my life has been lost under the pressures of disease; much has been trifled away; and much has always been spent in provision for the day that was passing over me; but I shall not think my employment useless or ignoble, if by my assistance foreign nations, and distant ages, gain access to the propagators of knowledge, and understand the teachers of truth; if my labours afford light to the repositories of science, and add celebrity to Bacon, to Hooker, to Milton, and to Boyle.
— Samuel Johnson, "On His Dictionary," from the Preface to the English Dictionary, in Ibid., p. 409.
To the Right Honourable the Earl of Chesterfield
February 7, 1755.
My Lord,
I have been lately informed, by the proprietor of the World, that two papers, in which my Dictionary is recommended to the publick, were written by your Lordship. To be so distinguished, is an honour, which, being very little accustomed to favours from the great, I know not well how to receive, or in what terms to acknowledge.
When, upon some slight encouragement, I first visited your Lordship, I was overpowered, like the rest of mankind, by the enchantment of your address; and could not forbear to wish that I might boast myself Le vainqueur du vainqueur de la terre; — that I might obtain that regard for which I saw the world contending; but I found my attendence so little encouraged, that neither pride nor modesty would suffice me to continue it. When I had once addressed your Lordship in publick, I had exhausted all the art of pleasing which a retired and uncourtly scholar can possess. I had done all that I could; and no man is well pleased to have his all neglected, be it ever so little.
Seven years, my Lord, have now past, since I waited in your outward rooms, or was repulsed from your door; during which time I have been pushing my work through difficulties, of which it is useless to complain, and have brought it, at last, to the verge of publication, without one act of assistance, one word of encouragement, or one smile of favour. Such treatment I did not expect, for I never had a Patron before.
The shepherd in Virgil grew at last acquainted with Love, and found him a native of the rocks.
Is not a Patron, my Lord, one who looks with unconcern on a man struggling for life in the water, and, when he has reached ground, encumbers him with help? The notice which you have been pleased to take of my labours, had it been delayed till I am indifferent, and cannot enjoy it; till I am solitary, and cannot impart it; till I am known, and do not want it. I hope it is no very cynical asperity not to confess obligations where no benefit has been received, or to be unwilling that the publick should consider me as owing that to a Patron, which Providence has enabled me to do for myself.
Having carried on my work thus far with so little obligation to any favourer of learning, I shall not be disappointed though I should conclude it, if less be possible, with less; for I have been long wakened from the dream of hope, in which I once boasted myself with so much exultation.
My Lord,
Your Lordship's most humble,
Most obedient servant,
Sam. Johnson.
— Samuel Johnson, Letter to Lord Chesterfield, in Ibid., pp. 411-413.
Friday, July 2, 2010
Just Consideration
Though I speake with the tongues of men & of Angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brasse or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophesie, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge: and though I have all faith, so that I could remooue mountaines, and have no charitie, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poore, and though I give my body to bee burned, and have not charitie, it profiteth me nothing. Charitie suffereth long, and is kinde: charitie enuieth not: charitie vaunteth not it selfe, is not puffed up, Doeth not behave it selfe unseemly, seeketh not her owne, is not easily prouoked, thinketh no euill, Reioyceth not in iniqitie, but reioyceth in the trueth: Beareth all things, beleeueth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Charitie neuer faileth: but whether there be prophesies, they shall faile; whether there bee tongues, they shall cease; whether there bee knowledge, it shall vanish away. For we know in part, and we prophesie in part. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is part, shall be done away. When I was a childe, I spake as a childe, I undersrood as a childe, I thought as a childe: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see through a glasse, darkely: but then face to face: now I know in part, but then shall I know even as also I am knowen. And now abideth faith, hope, charitie, these three, but the greatest of these is charitie.
— St. Paul, from I Corinthians, xiii, 1-13, The Holy Bible, Authorized Version, 1611 A.D., p. 83, in The Oxford Book of English Prose, Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch (sel. & ed.), p. 126.
I have of late, — but wherefore I know not, — lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of exercise; and indeed it goes so heavily with my disposition that this goodly frame, the Earth, seems to me a sterile Promontory; this most excellent Canopy, the Air, look you, this brave o'erhanging Firmament, this Majestical Roof fretted with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours. What a piece of work is a man! How Noble in Reason! how infinite in faculty! in form and moving, how express and admirable! in Action how like an Angel! in apprehension how like a God! the beauty of the world! the Paragon of Animals! And yet, to me, what is this Quintessence of Dust? Man delights not me; no, nor Woman neither, though, by your smiling, you seem to say so.
— William Shakespeare, Hamlet, II, ii, in Ibid., p. 150.
God made Sun and Moon to distinguish seasons, and day, and night, and we cannot have the fruits of the earth but in their seasons: But God hath made no decree to distinguish the seasons of his mercies; In paradise, the fruits were ripe, the first minute, and in heaven it is alwaies Autumne, his mercies are ever in their maturity. We ask panem quotidianum, our daily bread, and God never sayes you should have come yesterday, he never sayes you must againe to morrow, but to day if you will heare his voice, to day he will heare you. If some King of the earth have so large an extent of Dominion, in North, and South, as that he hath Winter and Summer together in his Dominions, so large an extent East and West, as that he hath day and night together in his Dominions, much more hath God mercy and judjement together: He brought light out of darknesse, not out of a lesser light; he can bring thy Summer out of Winter, though thou have no Spring; though in the wayes of fortune, or understanding, or conscience, thou have been benighted till now, wintred and frozen, clouded and eclypsed, damped and benumbed, smothered and stupefied till now, now God comes to thee, not as in the dawning of the day, not as in the bud of the spring, but as the Sun at noon to illustrate all shadows, as the sheaves in harvest, to fill all penuries, all occasions invite his mercies, and all times are his seasons.
— John Donne, LXXX Sermons: Sermon II, "All Times are God's Seasons," in Ibid., pp. 168-169.
Good and evil we know in the field of this World grow up together almost inseparably; and the knowledge of good is so involved and interwoven with the knowledge of evil and in so many cunning resemblances hardly to be discerned, that those confused seeds which were inposed on Psyche as an incessant labour to cull out and sort asunder were not more intermixed. It was from out the rind of one apple tasted that the knowledge of good and evil as two twins cleaving together leapt forth into the World. And perhaps this is that doom which Adam fell into of knowing good and evil, that is to say of knowing good by evil. As therefore the state of man now is, what wisdom can there be to choose, what continence to forbeare, without the knowledge of evil? He that can apprehend and consider vice with all her baits and seeming pleasures, and yet abstain, and yet distinguish, and yet prefer that which is truly better, he is the true warfaring Christian. I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her adversary, but slinks out of the race, where that immortal garland is to be run for not without dust and heat. Assuredly we bring not innocence into the world, we bring impurity much rather: that which purifies us is trial, and trial is by what is contrary.
— John Milton, "Against Fugitive and Cloistered Virtue," from Areopagitica, in Ibid., pp. 241-242.
— St. Paul, from I Corinthians, xiii, 1-13, The Holy Bible, Authorized Version, 1611 A.D., p. 83, in The Oxford Book of English Prose, Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch (sel. & ed.), p. 126.
I have of late, — but wherefore I know not, — lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of exercise; and indeed it goes so heavily with my disposition that this goodly frame, the Earth, seems to me a sterile Promontory; this most excellent Canopy, the Air, look you, this brave o'erhanging Firmament, this Majestical Roof fretted with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours. What a piece of work is a man! How Noble in Reason! how infinite in faculty! in form and moving, how express and admirable! in Action how like an Angel! in apprehension how like a God! the beauty of the world! the Paragon of Animals! And yet, to me, what is this Quintessence of Dust? Man delights not me; no, nor Woman neither, though, by your smiling, you seem to say so.
— William Shakespeare, Hamlet, II, ii, in Ibid., p. 150.
God made Sun and Moon to distinguish seasons, and day, and night, and we cannot have the fruits of the earth but in their seasons: But God hath made no decree to distinguish the seasons of his mercies; In paradise, the fruits were ripe, the first minute, and in heaven it is alwaies Autumne, his mercies are ever in their maturity. We ask panem quotidianum, our daily bread, and God never sayes you should have come yesterday, he never sayes you must againe to morrow, but to day if you will heare his voice, to day he will heare you. If some King of the earth have so large an extent of Dominion, in North, and South, as that he hath Winter and Summer together in his Dominions, so large an extent East and West, as that he hath day and night together in his Dominions, much more hath God mercy and judjement together: He brought light out of darknesse, not out of a lesser light; he can bring thy Summer out of Winter, though thou have no Spring; though in the wayes of fortune, or understanding, or conscience, thou have been benighted till now, wintred and frozen, clouded and eclypsed, damped and benumbed, smothered and stupefied till now, now God comes to thee, not as in the dawning of the day, not as in the bud of the spring, but as the Sun at noon to illustrate all shadows, as the sheaves in harvest, to fill all penuries, all occasions invite his mercies, and all times are his seasons.
— John Donne, LXXX Sermons: Sermon II, "All Times are God's Seasons," in Ibid., pp. 168-169.
Good and evil we know in the field of this World grow up together almost inseparably; and the knowledge of good is so involved and interwoven with the knowledge of evil and in so many cunning resemblances hardly to be discerned, that those confused seeds which were inposed on Psyche as an incessant labour to cull out and sort asunder were not more intermixed. It was from out the rind of one apple tasted that the knowledge of good and evil as two twins cleaving together leapt forth into the World. And perhaps this is that doom which Adam fell into of knowing good and evil, that is to say of knowing good by evil. As therefore the state of man now is, what wisdom can there be to choose, what continence to forbeare, without the knowledge of evil? He that can apprehend and consider vice with all her baits and seeming pleasures, and yet abstain, and yet distinguish, and yet prefer that which is truly better, he is the true warfaring Christian. I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her adversary, but slinks out of the race, where that immortal garland is to be run for not without dust and heat. Assuredly we bring not innocence into the world, we bring impurity much rather: that which purifies us is trial, and trial is by what is contrary.
— John Milton, "Against Fugitive and Cloistered Virtue," from Areopagitica, in Ibid., pp. 241-242.
Thursday, July 1, 2010
Be Still, and Be Still, Part 2
Unknowable, what a man must lose to have the courage to confront the conventions — unknowable what Diogenes lost to become the man who permitted himself everything, who translated his innermost thoughts into actions with a supernatural insolence, like some libidinous yet pure god of knowledge. No one was so frank; a limit case of sincerity and lucidity as well as an example of what we could be if education and hypocrisy did not rein in our desires and our gestures.
"One day a man invited him into a richly furnished house, saying 'be careful not to spit on the floor.' Diogenes, who needed to spit, spat in his face, exclaiming that it was the only dirty place he could find where spitting was permitted.' — Diogenes Laërtius.
Who, after being received by a rich man has not longed for oceans of saliva to expectorate on all the owners of the earth? And who has not swallowed his own spittle for fear of casting it in the face of some stout and respected thief?
We are all absurdly prudent and timid: cynicism is not something we are taught in school. Nor is pride.
"Menippus, in his work entitled The Virtue of Diogenes, tells how he was captured and sold as a slave, and that he was asked what he knew how to do. Diogenes answered: 'Command!' and shouted to the herald: 'Ask who wants to buy a master?'"
The man who affronted Alexander and Plato, who masterbated ("If only heaven let us rub our bellies too, and that be enough to stave off hunger!"), the man of famous cask and the famous lantern, and who in his youth was a counterfeiter (what higher dignity for a cynic?), what must his experience have been of his neighbors? Certainly our own, yet with this difference: that man was the sole substance of his reflection and his contempt. Without suffering the falsifications of any ethic and any metaphysic, he strove to strip man in order to show him to us nakeder and more abominable than any comedy, any apocalypse has done.
"Socrates gone mad," Plato called him — Socrates turned sincere is what he should have said, Socrates renouncing the Good, abjuring formulas and the City, Socrates turning, finally, into a psychologist and nothing more. But Socrates — even sublime — remains conventional; he remains a master, an edifying model. Only Diogenes proposes nothing; the basis of his attitude — and of cynacism in its essence — is determined by a testicular horror of the absurdity of being man.
....Again, according to Diogenes Laërtius: "At the Olympic games, when the herald proclaimed: 'Dioxippus has vanquished men!' Diogenes answered: 'He has vanquished only slaves — men are my business.'"
— E. M. Cioran, from "The 'Celestial Dog'," in A Short History of Decay, "PART I: Directions for Decomposition," pp. 63-64.
(Lord, give me the capacity of never praying, spare me the insanity of all worship, let this temptation of love pass from me which would deliver me forever unto You. Let the void spread between my heart and heaven! I have no desire to people my deserts by Your presence, to tyrannize my nights by your light, to dissolve my Siberias beneath Your sun. Lonelier than You, I want my hands pure, the contrary of Yours which were forever corrupted by kneading the earth and busying themselves with the world's affairs. I ask Your stupid omnipotence for nothing bur respect of my solitude and my torments. What have I to do with Your words? And I fear the madness which would make me hear them. Grant me the miracle gathered before the first moment, the peace which You could not tolerate and which incited You to breach the nothingness in order to make way for this carnival of time, and thereby to condemn me to the universe — to humiliation and the shame of Being.)
— E. M. Cioran, from "The Arrogance of Prayer," in Ibid., pp. 86-87.
Alexandrianism is a period of skillful negations, a style of inutility and refusal, a display of erudition and sarcasm above the confusion of values and beliefs. Its ideal space would be at the intersection of Hellas and bygone Paris, the meeting place of the agora and the salon. A civilization evolves from agriculture to paradox. Between thease two extremes unfolds the combat of barbarism and neurosis; from it results the unstable equilibrium of creative epochs. This combat is approaching its close: all horizons are opening without any being able to excite an exhausted and disabused curiosity. It is then up to the enlightened individual to flourish in the void — up to the intellectual vampire to slake his thirst on the vitiated blood of civilizations.
Must we take history seriously, or stand on the sidelines as a spectator? Are we to see it as a struggle toward a goal or the celebration of a light which intensifies and fades with neither necessity nor reason? The answer depends on our degree of illusion about man, on our curiosity to divine the way in which will be resolved that mixture of waltz and slaughterhouse which composes and stimulates his becoming.
— E. M. Cioran, from "Faces of Decadence," in A Short History of Decay, "PART II: The Second-Hand Thinker," p. 116.
Having passed through so many lungs, the air no longer renews itself. Every day vomits up its tomorrow, and I vainly try to imagine the image of a single desire. Everything is an ordeal: broken down like a beast of burden harnessed to Matter, I drag the planets.
Give me another universe — or I succumb.
— E. M. Cioran, Ibid., p. 122.
"One day a man invited him into a richly furnished house, saying 'be careful not to spit on the floor.' Diogenes, who needed to spit, spat in his face, exclaiming that it was the only dirty place he could find where spitting was permitted.' — Diogenes Laërtius.
Who, after being received by a rich man has not longed for oceans of saliva to expectorate on all the owners of the earth? And who has not swallowed his own spittle for fear of casting it in the face of some stout and respected thief?
We are all absurdly prudent and timid: cynicism is not something we are taught in school. Nor is pride.
"Menippus, in his work entitled The Virtue of Diogenes, tells how he was captured and sold as a slave, and that he was asked what he knew how to do. Diogenes answered: 'Command!' and shouted to the herald: 'Ask who wants to buy a master?'"
The man who affronted Alexander and Plato, who masterbated ("If only heaven let us rub our bellies too, and that be enough to stave off hunger!"), the man of famous cask and the famous lantern, and who in his youth was a counterfeiter (what higher dignity for a cynic?), what must his experience have been of his neighbors? Certainly our own, yet with this difference: that man was the sole substance of his reflection and his contempt. Without suffering the falsifications of any ethic and any metaphysic, he strove to strip man in order to show him to us nakeder and more abominable than any comedy, any apocalypse has done.
"Socrates gone mad," Plato called him — Socrates turned sincere is what he should have said, Socrates renouncing the Good, abjuring formulas and the City, Socrates turning, finally, into a psychologist and nothing more. But Socrates — even sublime — remains conventional; he remains a master, an edifying model. Only Diogenes proposes nothing; the basis of his attitude — and of cynacism in its essence — is determined by a testicular horror of the absurdity of being man.
....Again, according to Diogenes Laërtius: "At the Olympic games, when the herald proclaimed: 'Dioxippus has vanquished men!' Diogenes answered: 'He has vanquished only slaves — men are my business.'"
— E. M. Cioran, from "The 'Celestial Dog'," in A Short History of Decay, "PART I: Directions for Decomposition," pp. 63-64.
(Lord, give me the capacity of never praying, spare me the insanity of all worship, let this temptation of love pass from me which would deliver me forever unto You. Let the void spread between my heart and heaven! I have no desire to people my deserts by Your presence, to tyrannize my nights by your light, to dissolve my Siberias beneath Your sun. Lonelier than You, I want my hands pure, the contrary of Yours which were forever corrupted by kneading the earth and busying themselves with the world's affairs. I ask Your stupid omnipotence for nothing bur respect of my solitude and my torments. What have I to do with Your words? And I fear the madness which would make me hear them. Grant me the miracle gathered before the first moment, the peace which You could not tolerate and which incited You to breach the nothingness in order to make way for this carnival of time, and thereby to condemn me to the universe — to humiliation and the shame of Being.)
— E. M. Cioran, from "The Arrogance of Prayer," in Ibid., pp. 86-87.
Alexandrianism is a period of skillful negations, a style of inutility and refusal, a display of erudition and sarcasm above the confusion of values and beliefs. Its ideal space would be at the intersection of Hellas and bygone Paris, the meeting place of the agora and the salon. A civilization evolves from agriculture to paradox. Between thease two extremes unfolds the combat of barbarism and neurosis; from it results the unstable equilibrium of creative epochs. This combat is approaching its close: all horizons are opening without any being able to excite an exhausted and disabused curiosity. It is then up to the enlightened individual to flourish in the void — up to the intellectual vampire to slake his thirst on the vitiated blood of civilizations.
Must we take history seriously, or stand on the sidelines as a spectator? Are we to see it as a struggle toward a goal or the celebration of a light which intensifies and fades with neither necessity nor reason? The answer depends on our degree of illusion about man, on our curiosity to divine the way in which will be resolved that mixture of waltz and slaughterhouse which composes and stimulates his becoming.
— E. M. Cioran, from "Faces of Decadence," in A Short History of Decay, "PART II: The Second-Hand Thinker," p. 116.
Having passed through so many lungs, the air no longer renews itself. Every day vomits up its tomorrow, and I vainly try to imagine the image of a single desire. Everything is an ordeal: broken down like a beast of burden harnessed to Matter, I drag the planets.
Give me another universe — or I succumb.
— E. M. Cioran, Ibid., p. 122.
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Be Still, and Be Still
I. It is because it rests on nothing, because it lacks even the shadow of an argument that we persevere in life. Death is too exact; it has all the reasons on its side. Mysterious for our instincts, it takes shape, to our reflection, limpid, without glamor, and without the false lures of the unknown.
By dint of accumulating non-mysteries and monopolizing non-meanings, life inspires more dread than death: it is life which is the great Unknown.
Where can so much Void and Incomprehensibility lead? We cling to the days because the desire to die is too logical, hence ineffective. If life had a single argument in its favor — distinct, indisputable — it would annihilate itself; instincts and prejudices collapse at the contact of Rigor. Everything that breathes feeds on the unverifiable; a dose of logic would be deadly to existence....
— E. M. Cioran, from "Variations on Death, in PART I: "Directions for Decomposition," in A Short History of Decay, pp. 10-11.
....Each suffering, except ours, seems to us legitimate or absurdly intelligible; otherwise, mourning would be the unique constant in the versatility of our sentiments. But we wear only the mourning of ourselves. If we could understand and love the infinity of agonies which languish around us, all the lives which are hidden deaths, we should require as many hearts as there are suffering beings. And if we had a miraculously present memory which sustained the totality of our present pains, we should succumb beneath such a burden. Life is possible only by the deficiencies of our imagination and our memory.
— E. M. Cioran, from "The Key to Our Endurance," in Ibid., p. 26.
(The great systems are actually no more than brilliant tautologies. What advantage is it to know that the nature of being consists in the "will to live," in "idea," or in the whim of God or of Chemistry? A mere proliferation of words, subtile displacements of meanings. What is loathes the verbal embrace, and our inmost experience reveals us nothing beyond the privileged and inexpressible moments. Moreover, Being itself is only a pretension of Nothingness.
We define only out of despair. We must have a formula, we must even have many, if only to give justification to the mind and a façade to the void.
Neither concept not ecstasy are functional. When music plunges us into the "inwardness" of being, we rapidly return to the surface: the effects of the illusion scatter and our knowledge admits its nullity.
The things we touch and those we conceive are as improbable as our senses and our reason; we are sure only in our verbal universe, manageable at will — and ineffectual. Being is mute and the mind is garrulous. This is called knowing.
The philosophers originality comes down to inventing terms. Since there are only three or four attitudes by which to confront the world — and about as many ways of dying — the nuances which multiply and diversify them derive from no more than the choice of words, bereft of any metaphysical range.
We are engulfed in a pleonastic universe, in which the questions and answers amount to the same thing.)
— E. M. Cioran, from "Farewell to Philosophy," in Ibid., pp. 48-49.
....Since the most eloquent decadences edify us no further as to unhappiness than the stammerings of a shepherd, and ultimately there is more wisdom in the mockery of an idiot than in the investigations of the laboratories, is it not madness to pursue truth on the paths of time — or in books? Lao-tse, reduced to a few texts, is not more naïve than we who have read everything. Profundity is independent of knowledge. We translate to other levels the revelations of the ages, or we exploit original intuitions by the latest acquisitions of thought. Thus Hegel is a Heraclitus who has read Kant; and our Ennui is an affective Eleaticism, the fiction of diversity unmasked and exposed to the heart....
— E. M. Cioran, from "Return to the Elements," in Ibid., p. 50.
By dint of accumulating non-mysteries and monopolizing non-meanings, life inspires more dread than death: it is life which is the great Unknown.
Where can so much Void and Incomprehensibility lead? We cling to the days because the desire to die is too logical, hence ineffective. If life had a single argument in its favor — distinct, indisputable — it would annihilate itself; instincts and prejudices collapse at the contact of Rigor. Everything that breathes feeds on the unverifiable; a dose of logic would be deadly to existence....
— E. M. Cioran, from "Variations on Death, in PART I: "Directions for Decomposition," in A Short History of Decay, pp. 10-11.
....Each suffering, except ours, seems to us legitimate or absurdly intelligible; otherwise, mourning would be the unique constant in the versatility of our sentiments. But we wear only the mourning of ourselves. If we could understand and love the infinity of agonies which languish around us, all the lives which are hidden deaths, we should require as many hearts as there are suffering beings. And if we had a miraculously present memory which sustained the totality of our present pains, we should succumb beneath such a burden. Life is possible only by the deficiencies of our imagination and our memory.
— E. M. Cioran, from "The Key to Our Endurance," in Ibid., p. 26.
(The great systems are actually no more than brilliant tautologies. What advantage is it to know that the nature of being consists in the "will to live," in "idea," or in the whim of God or of Chemistry? A mere proliferation of words, subtile displacements of meanings. What is loathes the verbal embrace, and our inmost experience reveals us nothing beyond the privileged and inexpressible moments. Moreover, Being itself is only a pretension of Nothingness.
We define only out of despair. We must have a formula, we must even have many, if only to give justification to the mind and a façade to the void.
Neither concept not ecstasy are functional. When music plunges us into the "inwardness" of being, we rapidly return to the surface: the effects of the illusion scatter and our knowledge admits its nullity.
The things we touch and those we conceive are as improbable as our senses and our reason; we are sure only in our verbal universe, manageable at will — and ineffectual. Being is mute and the mind is garrulous. This is called knowing.
The philosophers originality comes down to inventing terms. Since there are only three or four attitudes by which to confront the world — and about as many ways of dying — the nuances which multiply and diversify them derive from no more than the choice of words, bereft of any metaphysical range.
We are engulfed in a pleonastic universe, in which the questions and answers amount to the same thing.)
— E. M. Cioran, from "Farewell to Philosophy," in Ibid., pp. 48-49.
....Since the most eloquent decadences edify us no further as to unhappiness than the stammerings of a shepherd, and ultimately there is more wisdom in the mockery of an idiot than in the investigations of the laboratories, is it not madness to pursue truth on the paths of time — or in books? Lao-tse, reduced to a few texts, is not more naïve than we who have read everything. Profundity is independent of knowledge. We translate to other levels the revelations of the ages, or we exploit original intuitions by the latest acquisitions of thought. Thus Hegel is a Heraclitus who has read Kant; and our Ennui is an affective Eleaticism, the fiction of diversity unmasked and exposed to the heart....
— E. M. Cioran, from "Return to the Elements," in Ibid., p. 50.
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Think About It
Anguish
Is it possible that She will get us forgiven for ambitions continually crushed, — that an affluent end will make up for the ages of indigence, — that one day of success will lull us to sleep on the shame of our fatal incompetence?
(O palms! diamond! — Love, force! — higher than all joys and all fame! — in every respect, — everywhere, demon, god, — youth of this being here: myself!)
And may the accidents of scientific wonders and the movements of social brotherhood be cherished as the progressive restitution of our primitive franchise.
But the Vampire who makes us agreeable, commands us to enjoy ourselves with what she leaves us, or, in other words, that we should be more amusing.
Wounds, from the tossings of the wearing air and the sea; torrents from the silence of the waters and murderous air; tortures that laugh in their silence abominably rough.
— Arthur Rimbaud, Anguish (entire), in Baudelaire Rimbaud Verlaine: Selected Verse and Prose Poems, Joseph M. Bernstein (ed.), pp. 206-207.
....It took me a long time, my lifetime so to speak, to realize that the colour of an eye half seen, or the source of some distant sound, are closer to Giudecca in the hell of unknowing than the existence of God, or the origins of protoplasm, or the existence of self, and even less worthy than these to occupy the wise. It's a bit much, a lifetime, to achieve this consoling conclusion, it doesn't leave you much time to profit by it....
— Samuel Beckett, from "First Love," in First Love and Other Shorts, pp. 32-33.
....In twos often they came, one hard on the other, thus, How shall I go another day? and then, How did I ever go on another day? Or, Did I kill my father? and then, Did I ever kill anyone? That kind of way, to the general from the particular I suppose you might say, question and answer too in a way, very addling. I strive with them as best I can, quickening my step when they come on, tossing my head from side to side and up and down, staring agonizedly at this and that, increasing my murmur to a scream, these are helps. But they should not be necessary, something is wrong here, if it was the end I would not so much mind, but how often I have said, in my life, before some new awful thing, It is the end, and it was not the end, and yet the end cannot be far off now, I shall fall as I go along and stay down or curl up for the night as usual among the rocks and before morning be gone. Oh I know I too shall cease and be as when I was not yet, only all over instead of in store, that makes me happy, often now my murmur falters and dies and I weep for happiness as I go along and for love of this old earth that has carried me so long and whose uncomplainingness will soon be mine. Just under the surface I shall be, all together at first, then separate and drift, through all the earth and perhaps in the end through a cliff into the sea, something of me. A ton of worms in an acre, that is a wonderful thought, a ton of worms, I believe it. Where did I get it, from a dream, or a book read in a nook when a boy, or a word overheard as I went along, or in me all along and kept under till it could give me joy, these are the kind of horrid thoughts I have to contend with in the way I have said....
— Samuel Beckett, from "From an Abandoned Work," in Ibid., pp. 44-45.
....Any guides we later asked about the value of these myths always gave us what appeared to be evasive answers. "They are as true," one of them told us, "as your own fairy stories and scientific theories." "A knife," said another, "is neither true nor false. But someone who grasps it by the blade is truly in error."
— René Daumal, Mount Analogue, p. 95.
This is how I sum up for myself what I wish to convey to those who work here with me:
I am dead because I lack desire;
I lack desire because I think I possess;
I think I possess because I do not try to give.
In trying to give, you see that you have nothing;
Seeing you have nothing, you try to give of yourself;
Trying to give of yourself, you see that you are nothing;
In desiring to become, you begin to live.
— René Daumal, from Postface, Ibid., p. 113.
Is it possible that She will get us forgiven for ambitions continually crushed, — that an affluent end will make up for the ages of indigence, — that one day of success will lull us to sleep on the shame of our fatal incompetence?
(O palms! diamond! — Love, force! — higher than all joys and all fame! — in every respect, — everywhere, demon, god, — youth of this being here: myself!)
And may the accidents of scientific wonders and the movements of social brotherhood be cherished as the progressive restitution of our primitive franchise.
But the Vampire who makes us agreeable, commands us to enjoy ourselves with what she leaves us, or, in other words, that we should be more amusing.
Wounds, from the tossings of the wearing air and the sea; torrents from the silence of the waters and murderous air; tortures that laugh in their silence abominably rough.
— Arthur Rimbaud, Anguish (entire), in Baudelaire Rimbaud Verlaine: Selected Verse and Prose Poems, Joseph M. Bernstein (ed.), pp. 206-207.
....It took me a long time, my lifetime so to speak, to realize that the colour of an eye half seen, or the source of some distant sound, are closer to Giudecca in the hell of unknowing than the existence of God, or the origins of protoplasm, or the existence of self, and even less worthy than these to occupy the wise. It's a bit much, a lifetime, to achieve this consoling conclusion, it doesn't leave you much time to profit by it....
— Samuel Beckett, from "First Love," in First Love and Other Shorts, pp. 32-33.
....In twos often they came, one hard on the other, thus, How shall I go another day? and then, How did I ever go on another day? Or, Did I kill my father? and then, Did I ever kill anyone? That kind of way, to the general from the particular I suppose you might say, question and answer too in a way, very addling. I strive with them as best I can, quickening my step when they come on, tossing my head from side to side and up and down, staring agonizedly at this and that, increasing my murmur to a scream, these are helps. But they should not be necessary, something is wrong here, if it was the end I would not so much mind, but how often I have said, in my life, before some new awful thing, It is the end, and it was not the end, and yet the end cannot be far off now, I shall fall as I go along and stay down or curl up for the night as usual among the rocks and before morning be gone. Oh I know I too shall cease and be as when I was not yet, only all over instead of in store, that makes me happy, often now my murmur falters and dies and I weep for happiness as I go along and for love of this old earth that has carried me so long and whose uncomplainingness will soon be mine. Just under the surface I shall be, all together at first, then separate and drift, through all the earth and perhaps in the end through a cliff into the sea, something of me. A ton of worms in an acre, that is a wonderful thought, a ton of worms, I believe it. Where did I get it, from a dream, or a book read in a nook when a boy, or a word overheard as I went along, or in me all along and kept under till it could give me joy, these are the kind of horrid thoughts I have to contend with in the way I have said....
— Samuel Beckett, from "From an Abandoned Work," in Ibid., pp. 44-45.
....Any guides we later asked about the value of these myths always gave us what appeared to be evasive answers. "They are as true," one of them told us, "as your own fairy stories and scientific theories." "A knife," said another, "is neither true nor false. But someone who grasps it by the blade is truly in error."
— René Daumal, Mount Analogue, p. 95.
This is how I sum up for myself what I wish to convey to those who work here with me:
I am dead because I lack desire;
I lack desire because I think I possess;
I think I possess because I do not try to give.
In trying to give, you see that you have nothing;
Seeing you have nothing, you try to give of yourself;
Trying to give of yourself, you see that you are nothing;
In desiring to become, you begin to live.
— René Daumal, from Postface, Ibid., p. 113.
Monday, June 28, 2010
In Your Head
"The benignant efficacies of Concealment," cries our Professor, "who shall speak or sing? Silence and Secrecy! Altars might still be raised to them (were this an altar-building time) for universal worship. Silence is the element in which great things fashion themselves together; that at length they may emerge, full-formed and majestic, into the daylight of Life, which they are thenceforth to rule. Not William the Silent only, but all the considerable men I have known, and the most undiplomatic and strategic of these, forbode to babble of what they were creating and projecting. Nay, in thy own mean perplexities, do thou thyself but hold thy tongue for one day: on the morrow how much clearer are thy purposes and duties; what wreck and rubbish have those mute workmen within thee swept away, when intrusive noises were shut out! Speech is too often not, as the Frenchman [Talleyrand] defined it, the art of concealing Thought; but of quite stifling and suspending Thought, so that there is none to conceal...."
— Thomas Carlyle, Sartor Resartus, Archibald MacMerchan (ed.), p. 198.
151, 23. From Suicide. The thought of self-destruction had occurred to Carlyle in his years of depression. "My curse seems deeper and blacker than that of any man: to be immured in a rotten carcass, every avenue of which is changed into an inlet of pain, till my intellect is obscured and weakened, and my head and heart are alike desolate and dark. How have I deserved this? Or is it mere fate that orders these things, caring no jot for merit or demerit, crushing our poor mortal interests among its ponderous machinery, and grinding us and them to dust relentlessly? I know not. Shall I ever know? Then why don't you kill yourself, sir? Is there not arsenic? is there not ratsbane of various kinds? and hemp? and steel? Most true, Sathanas, all these things are, but it will be time enough to use them when I have lost the game which I am yet but losing. You observe, sir, I have still a glimmering of hope; and while my friends, my mother, father, brothers, sisters live, the duty of not breaking their hearts would still remain to be performed when hope had utterly fled....
— From Thomas Carlyle's Journal, in "Notes" to Ibid., p. 349.
173, 9. But the whim we have. "When we speak of happiness and being happy, we half unconsciously mean some extra enjoyment, if I may say so, pleasure, some series of agreeable sensation, superadded to the ordinary pleasure of existing, which really, if free from positive pain, is all we have right to pretend to. In place of reckoning ourselves happy when we are not miserable, we reckon ourselvesmiserable when not happy. A proceeding, if you think of it, quite against rule! What claim have I to be in raptures? None in the world, except that I have taken such a whim into my own wise head; and having got so much, I feel as if I could never get my due....
"And so when the young gentleman goes forth into the world, and finds that it is really and truly not made of wax, but of stone and metal, and will keep its own shape, let the young gentleman fume as he likes; bless us, what a storm he gets into! What terrible elegies and pindaries and Childe Harolds and Sorrows of Werther! O devil take it, Providence is in the wrong; has used him (sweet, meritorious gentleman) unjustly. He will bring his action of damages against Providence! Trust me a hopeful lawsuit!
— Thomas Carlyle, from Wotton Reinfred, pp. 92-94, in Ibid., p. 357.
The most insatiable people are certain ascetics who go on hunger-strike in all spheres of life, thinking that in this way they will simultaneously achieve the following:
1) a voice will say: Enough, you have fasted enough, now you may eat like the others and it will not be accounted unto you as eating.
2) the same voice will at the same time say: You have fasted for so long under compulsion, from now on you will fast with joy, it will be sweeter than food (at the same time, however, you will also really eat).
3) the same voice will at the same time say: You have conquered the world, I release you from it, as from eating and from fasting (at the same time, however, you will both fast and eat).
In addition to this there also comes a voice that has been speaking to them ceaselessly all the time: Though you do not fast completely, you have the good will, and that suffices.
— Franz Kafka, "The Hunger Strike" (entire), in Parables and Paradoxes, p. 187.
— Thomas Carlyle, Sartor Resartus, Archibald MacMerchan (ed.), p. 198.
151, 23. From Suicide. The thought of self-destruction had occurred to Carlyle in his years of depression. "My curse seems deeper and blacker than that of any man: to be immured in a rotten carcass, every avenue of which is changed into an inlet of pain, till my intellect is obscured and weakened, and my head and heart are alike desolate and dark. How have I deserved this? Or is it mere fate that orders these things, caring no jot for merit or demerit, crushing our poor mortal interests among its ponderous machinery, and grinding us and them to dust relentlessly? I know not. Shall I ever know? Then why don't you kill yourself, sir? Is there not arsenic? is there not ratsbane of various kinds? and hemp? and steel? Most true, Sathanas, all these things are, but it will be time enough to use them when I have lost the game which I am yet but losing. You observe, sir, I have still a glimmering of hope; and while my friends, my mother, father, brothers, sisters live, the duty of not breaking their hearts would still remain to be performed when hope had utterly fled....
— From Thomas Carlyle's Journal, in "Notes" to Ibid., p. 349.
173, 9. But the whim we have. "When we speak of happiness and being happy, we half unconsciously mean some extra enjoyment, if I may say so, pleasure, some series of agreeable sensation, superadded to the ordinary pleasure of existing, which really, if free from positive pain, is all we have right to pretend to. In place of reckoning ourselves happy when we are not miserable, we reckon ourselvesmiserable when not happy. A proceeding, if you think of it, quite against rule! What claim have I to be in raptures? None in the world, except that I have taken such a whim into my own wise head; and having got so much, I feel as if I could never get my due....
"And so when the young gentleman goes forth into the world, and finds that it is really and truly not made of wax, but of stone and metal, and will keep its own shape, let the young gentleman fume as he likes; bless us, what a storm he gets into! What terrible elegies and pindaries and Childe Harolds and Sorrows of Werther! O devil take it, Providence is in the wrong; has used him (sweet, meritorious gentleman) unjustly. He will bring his action of damages against Providence! Trust me a hopeful lawsuit!
— Thomas Carlyle, from Wotton Reinfred, pp. 92-94, in Ibid., p. 357.
The most insatiable people are certain ascetics who go on hunger-strike in all spheres of life, thinking that in this way they will simultaneously achieve the following:
1) a voice will say: Enough, you have fasted enough, now you may eat like the others and it will not be accounted unto you as eating.
2) the same voice will at the same time say: You have fasted for so long under compulsion, from now on you will fast with joy, it will be sweeter than food (at the same time, however, you will also really eat).
3) the same voice will at the same time say: You have conquered the world, I release you from it, as from eating and from fasting (at the same time, however, you will both fast and eat).
In addition to this there also comes a voice that has been speaking to them ceaselessly all the time: Though you do not fast completely, you have the good will, and that suffices.
— Franz Kafka, "The Hunger Strike" (entire), in Parables and Paradoxes, p. 187.
Sunday, June 27, 2010
Consent to Advice
They will never understand this book, those who search for happiness. The soul remains unsatisfied; it falls asleep amid happy surroundings. It becomes inert rather than alert. The soul should remain alert, active. It should find happiness not in HAPPINESS but in the awareness of its violent activity.
It follows that sorrow is to be preferred over joy, for it quickens the soul; when it does not vanquish it stimulates. It causes suffering, but pride of undaunted living compensates for minor lapses. Supreme arrogance is the mask of intense living. I would not exchange the intense life for any other; I have lived several lives, and the least of these was the real one.
— Andrè Gide, The Notebooks of Andrè Walter, The White Notebook, p. 26.
Writing bores me, for what is there to write? Of all the emotions that demand expression, why choose one rather than another? Yet I must write, for my head is bursting under the pressure of accumulated emotions.
— Andrè Gide, Ibid., The Black Notebook, p. 85.
Strange enough how creatures of the humankind shut their eyes to plainest facts; and by the mere inertia of Oblivion, and Stupidity, live at ease in the midst of Wonders and Terrors. But indeed man is, and was always, a blockhead and dullard; much readier to feel and digest, than to think and consider. Prejudice, which he pretends to hate, is his absolute law-giver; mere use — and want — everywhere leads him by the nose; thus let but a Rising of the Sun, let but a Creation of the World happen twice, and it ceases to be marvelous, to be noteworthy, or noticeable....
— Thomas Carlyle, Sartor Resartus, Archibald MacMechan (ed.), pp. 49-50.
....Often we would condole over the hard destiny of the Young in this era: how after all our toil, we were to be turned-out into the world, with beards on our chins indeed, but with few other attributes of manhood; no existing thing that we were trained to Act on, nothing that we could so much as Believe. "How has our head on the outside a polished Hat," would Towgood exclaim, "and in the inside Vacancy, or a froth of Vocables and Attorney-Logic! At a small cost men are educated to make leather into shoes; but at a great cost, what am I educated to make? By Heaven, Brother! what I have already eaten and worn, as I came thus far, would endow a considerable Hospital of Incurables." — "Man , indeed," I would answer, "has a Digestive Faculty, which must be kept working were it even partly by stealth. But as for our Miseducation, make not bad worse; waste not the time yet ours, in trampling on thistles because they have yielded no figs. Frisch zu, Bruder! Here are Books and we have brains to read them; here is a whole Earth and a whole Heaven, and we have eyes to look on them: Frisch zu!"
— Thomas Carlyle, Ibid., p. 106.
....Our Works are the mirror wherein the spirit first sees its natural lineaments. Hence, too, the folly of that impossible Percept, Know thyself; till it be translated into this partially possible one, Know what thou canst work at.
— Thomas Carlyle, Ibid., p. 149.
"To me, in this our life," says the Professor, which is an internecine warfare with the Time-spirit, other warfare seems questionable, Host thou in any way a Contention with thy brother, I advise thee, think well what the meaning thereof is. If thou guage it to the bottom, it is simply this: "Fellow, see! thou art taking more than thy share of Happiness in the world, something from my share: which, by the Heavens, thou shalt not; nay I will fight thee rather." — Alas, and the whole lot to be divided is such a beggarly matter truly a "feast of shells," for the substance has been spilled out: not enough to quench one Appetite; and the collective human species clutching at them! — Can we not, in all such cases, rather say: "Take it, thou too-revenous individual; take that pitiful additional fraction of a share, which I reckoned mine, but which thou so wantest; take it with a blessing: would to Heaven I had enough for thee!" — If Fichte's Wissenshaftslehre be, "to a certain extent, Applied Christianity," surely to a still greater extent, so is this. We have here not a Whole Duty of Man, yet a Half Duty, namely, the Passive half: could we but do it, as we can demonstrate it!
But indeed Conviction, were it never so excellent, is worthless till it convert itself into Conduct. Nay, properly Conviction is not possible till then; inasmuch as all Speculation is by nature endless, formless, a vortex and vortices: only by a felt indubitable certainty of Experience does it find any center to revolve round, and so fashion itself into a system. Most true is it, as a wise man teaches us, that "Doubt of any sort cannot be removed except by Action." On which ground, too, let him who gropes painfully in darkness or uncertain light, and prays vehemently that the dawn may ripen into day, lay this other precept well to heart, which to me was of invaluable service: "Do the Duty which lies nearest thee," which thou knowest to be a Duty! Thy second Duty will already have become clearer.
— Thomas Carlyle, Ibid., pp. 176-177.
It follows that sorrow is to be preferred over joy, for it quickens the soul; when it does not vanquish it stimulates. It causes suffering, but pride of undaunted living compensates for minor lapses. Supreme arrogance is the mask of intense living. I would not exchange the intense life for any other; I have lived several lives, and the least of these was the real one.
— Andrè Gide, The Notebooks of Andrè Walter, The White Notebook, p. 26.
Writing bores me, for what is there to write? Of all the emotions that demand expression, why choose one rather than another? Yet I must write, for my head is bursting under the pressure of accumulated emotions.
— Andrè Gide, Ibid., The Black Notebook, p. 85.
Strange enough how creatures of the humankind shut their eyes to plainest facts; and by the mere inertia of Oblivion, and Stupidity, live at ease in the midst of Wonders and Terrors. But indeed man is, and was always, a blockhead and dullard; much readier to feel and digest, than to think and consider. Prejudice, which he pretends to hate, is his absolute law-giver; mere use — and want — everywhere leads him by the nose; thus let but a Rising of the Sun, let but a Creation of the World happen twice, and it ceases to be marvelous, to be noteworthy, or noticeable....
— Thomas Carlyle, Sartor Resartus, Archibald MacMechan (ed.), pp. 49-50.
....Often we would condole over the hard destiny of the Young in this era: how after all our toil, we were to be turned-out into the world, with beards on our chins indeed, but with few other attributes of manhood; no existing thing that we were trained to Act on, nothing that we could so much as Believe. "How has our head on the outside a polished Hat," would Towgood exclaim, "and in the inside Vacancy, or a froth of Vocables and Attorney-Logic! At a small cost men are educated to make leather into shoes; but at a great cost, what am I educated to make? By Heaven, Brother! what I have already eaten and worn, as I came thus far, would endow a considerable Hospital of Incurables." — "Man , indeed," I would answer, "has a Digestive Faculty, which must be kept working were it even partly by stealth. But as for our Miseducation, make not bad worse; waste not the time yet ours, in trampling on thistles because they have yielded no figs. Frisch zu, Bruder! Here are Books and we have brains to read them; here is a whole Earth and a whole Heaven, and we have eyes to look on them: Frisch zu!"
— Thomas Carlyle, Ibid., p. 106.
....Our Works are the mirror wherein the spirit first sees its natural lineaments. Hence, too, the folly of that impossible Percept, Know thyself; till it be translated into this partially possible one, Know what thou canst work at.
— Thomas Carlyle, Ibid., p. 149.
"To me, in this our life," says the Professor, which is an internecine warfare with the Time-spirit, other warfare seems questionable, Host thou in any way a Contention with thy brother, I advise thee, think well what the meaning thereof is. If thou guage it to the bottom, it is simply this: "Fellow, see! thou art taking more than thy share of Happiness in the world, something from my share: which, by the Heavens, thou shalt not; nay I will fight thee rather." — Alas, and the whole lot to be divided is such a beggarly matter truly a "feast of shells," for the substance has been spilled out: not enough to quench one Appetite; and the collective human species clutching at them! — Can we not, in all such cases, rather say: "Take it, thou too-revenous individual; take that pitiful additional fraction of a share, which I reckoned mine, but which thou so wantest; take it with a blessing: would to Heaven I had enough for thee!" — If Fichte's Wissenshaftslehre be, "to a certain extent, Applied Christianity," surely to a still greater extent, so is this. We have here not a Whole Duty of Man, yet a Half Duty, namely, the Passive half: could we but do it, as we can demonstrate it!
But indeed Conviction, were it never so excellent, is worthless till it convert itself into Conduct. Nay, properly Conviction is not possible till then; inasmuch as all Speculation is by nature endless, formless, a vortex and vortices: only by a felt indubitable certainty of Experience does it find any center to revolve round, and so fashion itself into a system. Most true is it, as a wise man teaches us, that "Doubt of any sort cannot be removed except by Action." On which ground, too, let him who gropes painfully in darkness or uncertain light, and prays vehemently that the dawn may ripen into day, lay this other precept well to heart, which to me was of invaluable service: "Do the Duty which lies nearest thee," which thou knowest to be a Duty! Thy second Duty will already have become clearer.
— Thomas Carlyle, Ibid., pp. 176-177.
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