Never Forget That Only Dead

There's A Large Strain Of Irony In Our Human Affairs... Interwoven With Our Affairs Is This Wonderful Spirit Of Irony Which Prevents Us From Ever Being Utterly And Irretrievably Serious, From Being Unaware Of The Mysterious Nature Of Our Existence.

I Regard Myself As A Religious... The Temper Of My Mind As Religious, And Because I Regard The Temper Of My Mind As Religious, I Am Profoundly Skeptical About Any Form Of Human Authority, Any Form Of Human Self-importance.

In The 19th Century, The English Were Loathed. Every Memoir That You Read Of That Period, Indicates The Loathing That Everybody Felt For The English, The Only Difference Between The English And Americans, In This Respect, Is The English Rather Liked Being Loathed And The Americans Apparently Dislike It Intensely.

When You Reach Your Sixties, You Have To Decide Whether You're Going To Be A Sot Or An Ascetic. In Other Words If You Want To Go On Working After You're Sixty, Some Degree Of Asceticism Is Inevitable.

When I Look Back On My Life Nowadays, Which I Sometimes Do, What Strikes Me Most Forcibly About It Is That What Seemed At The Time Most Significant And Seductive, Seems Now Most Futile And Absurd. For Instance, Success In All Of Its Various Guises; Being Known And Being Praised; Ostensible Pleasures, Like Acquiring Money Or Seducing Women, Or Traveling, Going To And Fro In The World And Up And Down In It Like Satan, Exploring And Experiencing Whatever Vanity Fair Has To Offer. In Retrospect All These Exercises In Self-gratification Seem Pure Fantasy, What Pascal Called “licking The Earth.