One Of The Many Pleasures Of Old

History Will See Advertising As One Of The Real Evil Things Of Our Time. It Is Stimulating People Constantly To Want Things, Want This, Want That.

It Is Only Possible To Succeed At Second-rate Pursuits - Like Becoming A Millionaire Or A Prime Minister, Winning A War, Seducing Beautiful Women, Flying Through The Stratosphere, Or Landing On The Moon. First-rate Pursuits - Involving, As They Must, Trying To Understand What Life Is About And Trying To Convey That Understanding - Inevitably Result In A Sense Of Failure. A Napoleon, A Churchill, Or A Roosevelt Can Feel Himself To Be Successful, But Never A Socrates, A Pascal, Or A Blake. Understanding Is Forever Unattainable.

[pascal] Was The First And Perhaps Is Still The Most Effective Voice To Be Raised In Warning Of The Consequences Of The Enthronement Of The Human Ego In Contradistinction To The Cross, Symbolizing The Ego's Immolation. How Beautiful It All Seemed At The Time Of The Enlightenment, That Man Triumphant Would Bring To Pass That Earthly Paradise Whose Groves Of Academe Would Ensure The Realization Forever Of Peace, Plenty, And Beatitude In Practice. But What A Nightmare Of Wars, Famines, And Folly Was To Result Therefrom.

I Think That Harold Macmillan Is A Very Intelligent Man, Who, As So Often Happens In Politics, Achieved Supreme Power Too Late.

Surely The Glory Of Journalism Is Its Transience.