Death Destroys A Man, But The Idea

Faith, To My Mind, Is A Stiffening Process, A Sort Of Mental Starch, Which Ought To Be Applied As Sparingly As Possible. I Dislike The Stuff. I Do Not Believe In It, For Its Own Sake, At All... My Lawgivers Are Erasmus And Montaigne, Not Moses And St Paul. My Temple Stands Not Upon Mount Moriah But In The Elysian Field Where Even The Immoral Are Admitted. My Motto Is 'lord, I Disbelieve - Help Thou My Unbelief.

One Is Certain Of Nothing But The Truth Of One's Own Emotions.

Most Of Life Is So Dull That There Is Nothing To Be Said About It, And The Books And Talk That Would Describe It As Interesting Are Obliged To Exaggerate, In The Hope Of Justifying Their Own Existence.

The Idea That Nations Should Love One Another, Or That Business Concerns Or Marketing Boards Should Love One Another, Or That A Man In Portugal Should Love A Man In Peru Of Whom He Has Never Heard -it Is Absurd, Unreal, Dangerous. The Fact Is We Can Only Love What We Know Personally. And We Cannot Know Much.

Most Of Life Is So Dull That There Is Nothing To Be Said About It, And The Books And Talks That Would Describe It As Interesting Are Obliged To Exaggerate, In The Hope Of Justifying Their Own Existence. Inside Its Cocoon Of Work Or Social Obligation, The Human Spirit Slumbers For The Most Part, Registering The Distinction Between Pleasure And Pain, But Not Nearly As Alert As We Pretend. There Are Periods In The Most Thrilling Day During Which Nothing Happens, And Though We Continue To Exclaim, "i Do Enjoy Myself", Or , "i Am Horrified," We Are Insincere.