JAMES THOMSON 1700-1748. “The Seasons”,
“The Castle of Innocence”.
INGRATITUDE IS TREASON TO MANKIND.
PEACE is the happy natural state of man; war is corruption & disgrace.
HEALTH is the vital principle of bliss, and exercise, of health.
I KNOW NO SUBJECT MORE ELEVATING, more amazing, more ready to the poetical enthusiasm, the philosophical reflection, and the moral sentiment that the works of nature. Where can we meet such variety, such beauty, such magnificence?
I THINK A BISHOP who doesn’t give offense to anyone is probably not a good bishop.
THE WORLD rolls round forever like a mill; it grinds out death and life and good and ill; it has no purpose, heart or mind or will.
D. H. LAWRENCE. 1885-1930. “Lady Chatterley’s Lover”.
NOTHING that comes from the deep, passional soul is bad, or can be bad.
INSTEAD of chopping yourself down to fit the world, chop the world down to fit yourself.
YOU’VE GOT TO KNOW YOURSELF SO YOU CAN AT LAST BE YOURSELF.
WHEN I WISH I WAS RICH, THEN I KNIOW I AM ILL.
MONEY IS OUR MADNESS, OUR VAST COLLECTIVE MADNESS.
WE’VE got to live, no matter how many skies have fallen.
FREEDOM is a very great reality, but it means above all things, freedom from lies.
I CAN NEVER DECIDE whether my dreams are the result of my thoughts, or my thoughts the result of my dreams.
THERE is no such thing as liberty. You only change one sort of domination for another. All we can do is to choose our master.
THE WORLD IS WONDERFUL AND BEAUTIFUL AND GOOD BEYOND ONE’S WILDEST IMAGINATION.
THOSE THAT GO SEARCHING FOR LOVE only make manifest their own lovelessness, and the loveless never find love, only the loving find love, and they never have to seek it.
MONEY POISONS YOU WHEN YOU’VE GOT IT, and starves you when you haven’t.
LIFE IS OURS TO BE SPENT, NOT TO BE SAVED.
THERE ARE THREE CURES FOR ENNUI: sleep, drink & travel.
MAN IS A THOUGHT-ADVENTURER.
LOVE is the flower of life, and blossoms unexpectedly and without law, and must be plucked where it is found, and enjoyed for the brief hour of its duration.
WHEN I HEAR modern people complain of being lonely then I know what has happened. They have lost the cosmos.
TRAGEDY is like strong acid — it dissolves away all but the very gold of truth.
ONE REALM WE HAVE NEVER CONQUERED: THE PURE PRESENT.
THE HUMAN SOUL NEEDS ACTUAL BEAUTY EVEN MORE THAN BREAD.
I NEVER SAW A WILD THING SORRY FOR ITSELF.
ONE never can know the why’s and the wherefores of one’s passional changes.
THE LIVING MOMENT IS EVERYTHING.
GOD DOESN’T KNOW THINGS. HE IS THINGS.
VITALY, the human race is dying. It is like a great uprooted tree, with its roots in the air. We must plant ourselves again in the universe.
THE ESSENTIAL American soul is hard, isolate, stoic & a killer. It has never yet melted.
WHAT YOU INTUITIVELY DESIRE, THAT IS POSSIBLE FOR YOU.
PEOPLE Always make war when they say they love peace.
THE ONLY PRINCIPLE I can see in this life, is that one must forfeit the less for the greater.
IF YOU DON’T LIKE IT, alter it, and if you can’t alter it, put up with it.
WHEN WE GET OUT OF THE GLASS BOTTLE OF OUR EGO . . . things will happen to us so that we don’t know ourselves. Cool, unlying life will rush in.
OURS IS AN EXCESSIVELY CONSCIOUS AGE. We know so much, we feel so little.
WHEN LOVE TURNS INTO DUST, money becomes the substitution.
CONSCIOUSNESS is an end in itself. We torture ourselves getting somewhere, and when we get there it is nowhere, for there is nowhere to get to.
IF A WOMAN hasn’t got a tiny streak of harlot in her, she’s a dry stick as a rule.
MY GREAT RELIGION is a belief in the blood, the flesh, as being wiser than the intellect. We can go wrong in our minds, but what our blood feels and believes and says is always true. The intellect is only a bit and a bridle.
I WANT TO LIVE MY LIFE SO THAT MY NIGHTS ARE NOT FULL OF REGRETS.
IF ONLY we could live two lives: the first in which to make mistakes and the second in which to profit by them.
IN EVERY GREAT NOVEL, who is the hero all the time? Not any of the characters, but some unnamed and nameless flame behind them all.