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“We are here none knows why, and we go none knows whither. We must be very humble. We must see the beauty of quietness. We must go through life so inconspicuously that Fate does not notice us. And let us seek the love of simple, ignorant people. Their ignorance is better than all out knowledge. Let us be silent, content in our little corner, meek and gentle like them. That is the wisdom of life.”
A somber Dirk Stroeve, after his wife leaves him and commits suicide. W. Somerset Maugham, The Moon and Sixpence (New York: Penguin, 1944), 129-30.
“There was a time when fox-hunting was the greatest sport in this country, but it has long since been replaced by divorce.”
Lloyd-Jones; Iain H. Murray, D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: The First Forty Years, 1899-1939 (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 2002), 66.
“We are so unhappy that we can only enjoy something which we should be annoyed to see go wrong, and that can and does constantly happen to thousands of things. Anyone who found the secret of rejoicing when things go well without being annoyed when they go badly would have found the point. It is perpetual motion.”
Blaise Pascal, Pensées, Translated by Alban J. Krailsheimer (London: Penguin, 1995), 181 (Brunschvicg numbering).
“What curious joints and hinges on which limbs are moved to and fro! What an inconceivable variety of nerves, veins, arteries, fibers, and little invisible parts are found in every member! . . . What endless contrivances to secure life, to nourish nature, and to propagate the same to future animals! [How could it be that] a good and merciful Creator should produce myriads of such exquisite machines to no other end or purpose but to be deposited in the dark chambers of the grave [before they were old enough to know good from evil or to serve their fellow man and their God?]“
Benjamin Franklin, “The Death of Infants,” Pennsylvania Gazette, June 20, 1734; cited by Walter Isaacson, Benjamin Franklin: An American Life (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2003), 83-4. Benjamin Franklin’s first born son died two years later at age 4.
“Sinuously winding through the room
On smokey tongues of sweetened cigarettes, -
Plaintive yet proud the cello tones resume
The andante of smooth hopes and lost regrets.”
Hart Crane, “Carmen de Boheme”
“I lay on my bed full of stale liquor and despair; alone in the house, and, as it seemed, utterly alone, not just in Lourenço Marques, in Africa, in the world. Alone in the universe, in eternity. With no glimmer of light in the prevailing blackness; no human voice I could hope to hear, or human heart I could hope to reach; no God to whom I could turn, or Saviour to take my hand.”
Malcolm Muggeridge, Chronicles of Wasted Time; Quoted by Os Guinness, Long Journey Home: A Guide to Your Search for the Meaning of Life (Colorado Springs, CO: Water Books, 2001), 23-4.
“. . . consulting our self-interest is the pestilence that most effectively leads to our destruction, so the sole haven of salvation is to be wise in nothing and to will nothing through ourselves but to follow the leading of the Lord alone.”
John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, III, 7, 1.
“[Augustine’s] psychological analysis anticipated parts of Freud: he first discovered the existence of the ‘sub-conscious.’”
Henry Chadwick, Augustine, Past Masters Series (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1986), 3.
“Two years ago! I tried to forget about her,
Until I began to think myself a success
And got a little more self-confidence;
And then I thought about her again. More and more.
At first I did not want to know about Celia
And so I never asked. Then I wanted to know
And did not dare to ask. It took all my courage
To ask you about her just now . . .”
Peter lamenting the death of Celia, whom he last saw two years ago; T. S. Eliot, The Cocktail Party (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1950), 3.1, p. 177.
