| 1 Feb, 2009 |
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Ambition is a poor excuse for not having sense enough to be lazy. What can you say about a society that says that God is dead and Elvis is alive? Never explain--your friends do not need it and your enemies will not believe you anyway. First, I do not sit down at my desk to put into verse something that is already clear in my mind. If it were clear in my mind, I should have no incentive or need to write about it. We do not write in order to be understood; we write in order to understand. Because women live creatively, they rarely experience the need to depict or write about that which to them is a primary experience and which men know only at a second remove. Women create naturally, men create artificially. Thoughts give birth to a creative force that is neither elemental nor sidereal. Thoughts create a new heaven, a new firmament, a new source of energy, from which new arts flow. When a man undertakes to create something, he establishes a new heaven, as it were and from it the work that he desires to create flows into him. For such is the immensity of man that he is greater than heaven and earth. Creative power, is that receptive attitude of expectancy which makes a mold into which the plastic and as yet undifferentiated substance can flow and take the desired form. - Thomas Troward It is folly for an eminent person to think of escaping censure, and a weakness to be affected by it. All the illustrious persons of antiquity, and indeed of every age, have passed through this fiery persecution. There is no defense against reproach but obscurity; it is a kind of concomitant to greatness, as satires and invectives were an essential part of a Roman triumph. A good writer is not necessarily a good book critic. No more so than a good drunk is automatically a good bartender. If you believe in what you are doing, then let nothing hold you up in your work. Much of the best work of the world has been done against seeming impossibilities. The thing is to get the work done. Most of our censure of others is only oblique praise of self, uttered to show the wisdom and superiority of the speaker. It has all the insidiousness of self-praise, and all the ill-desert of falsehood. It is a barren kind of criticism which tells you what a thing is not. Ours is an age of criticism, to which everything must be subjected. The sacredness of religion, and the authority of legislation, are by many regarded as grounds for exemption from the examination by this tribunal, But, if they are exempted, and cannot lay claim to sincere respect, which reason accords only to that which has stood the test of a free and public examination. Doubtless criticism was originally benignant, pointing out the beauties of a work rather that its defects. The passions of men have made it malignant, as a bad heart of Procrustes turned the bed, the symbol of repose, into an instrument of torture. We are suffering from too much sarcasm. Ten censure wrong, for one that writes amiss. In my wide association in life, meeting with many and great men in various parts of the world, I have yet to find the man, however great or exalted his station, who did not do better work and put forth greater effort under a spirit of approval than he would ever do under a spirit of criticism. Neither praise nor blame is the object of true criticism. Justly to discriminate, firmly to establish, wisely to proscribe, and honestly to award - these are the true aims and duties of criticism. Half of the secular unrest and dismal, profane sadness of modern society comes from the vain ideas that every man is bound to be a critic for life. There is one way to handle the ignorant and malicious critic. Ignore him. It is usually best to be generous with praise, but cautious with criticism. Criticism is the disapproval of people, not for having faults, but having faults different from your own. It is strange that we do not temper our resentment of criticism with a thought for our many faults which have escaped us. Curiosity in children, is but an appetite for knowledge. One great reason why children abandon themselves wholly to silly pursuits and trifle away their time insipidly is, because they find their curiosity balked, and their inquiries neglected. A man should live if only to satisfy his curiosity. As a well-spent day brings happy sleep, so a life well used brings a happy death. It is a sign of a creeping inner death when we no longer can praise the living. Nothing fails like success. People who work sitting down get paid more than people who work standing up. I have enough money to last me the rest of my life, unless I buy something. There must be more to life than having everything. Life is just one damned thing after another. My problem lies in reconciling my gross habits with my net income. The wages of sin are unreported. War is a series of catastrophes that results in a victory. Smoking is one of the leading causes of statistics. Editor: a person employed by a newspaper, whose business it is to separate the wheat from the chaff, and to see that the chaff is printed. When dealing with the insane, the best method is to pretend to be sane. Hollywood is a place where they place you under contract instead of under observation. Television has proved that people will look at anything rather than each other. Ninety percent of everything is crap. All phone calls are obscene. Last night I dreamed I ate a ten-pound marshmallow, and when I woke up the pillow was gone. I have a rock garden. Last week three of them died. One machine can do the work of fifty ordinary men. No machine can do the work of one extraordinary man. Nice guys finish last, but we get to sleep in. I shot an arrow into the air, and it stuck. Nothing ever goes away. God help those who do not help themselves. Nothing is more conducive to peace of mind than not having any opinions at all. |
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