| 3 March, 2009 |
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Noble life demands a noble architecture for noble uses of noble men. Lack of culture means what it has always meant: ignoble civilization and therefore imminent downfall. An idea is salvation by imagination. I believe in God, only I spell it Nature. There are some things you learn best in calm, and some in storm. We cannot really love anybody with whom we never laugh. If something anticipated arrives too late it finds us numb, wrung out from waiting, and we feel - nothing at all. The best things arrive on time. Language exerts hidden power, like a moon on the tides. Courage is the price that Life exacts for granting peace. Jealousy is all the fun you think they had. A good listener is not only popular everywhere, but after a while he gets to know something. It has all been very interesting. To fulfill a dream, to be allowed to sweat over lonely labor, to be given the chance to create, is the meat and potatoes of life. The money is the gravy. As everyone else, I love to dunk my crust in it. But alone, it is not a diet designed to keep body and soul together. There are new words now that excuse everybody. Give me the good old days of heroes and villains. the people you can bravo or hiss. There was a truth to them that all the slick credulity of today cannot touch. Fear not those who argue but those who dodge. The evil of the world is made possible by nothing but the sanction you give it. The spread of evil is the symptom of a vacuum. whenever evil wins, it is only by default: by the moral failure of those who evade the fact that there can be no compromise on basic principles. Evil is obvious only in retrospect. Evil when we are in its power is not felt as evil but as a necessity, or even a duty. It is bitter to lose a friend to evil, before one loses him to death. A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author. The secret of joy in work is contained in one word - excellence. To know how to do something well is to enjoy it. We only do well the things we like doing. I am doomed to an eternity of compulsive work. No set goal achieved satisfies. Success only breeds a new goal. The golden apple devoured has seeds. It is endless. It has been my experience that one cannot, in any shape or form, depend on human relations for lasting reward. It is only work that truly satisfies. In every power, of which taste is the foundation, excellence is pretty fairly divided between the sexes. You will do foolish things, but do them with enthusiasm. It is wise to apply the oil of refined politeness to the mechanisms of friendship. Humility is no substitute for a good personality. Total absence of humor renders life impossible. The true traveler is he who goes on foot, and even then, he sits down a lot of the time. Where you used to be, there is a hole in the world, which I find myself constantly walking around in the daytime, and falling into at night. I miss you like hell. What you will do matters. All you need is to do it. One never notices what has been done; one can only see what remains to be done. No good deed goes unpunished. We have too many high sounding words, and too few actions that correspond with them. Curiosity killed the cat, but for a while I was a suspect. A Hospital is no place to be sick. It is in vain to say human beings ought to be satisfied with tranquillity: they must have action; and they will make it if they cannot find it. I have long since come to believe that people never mean half of what they say, and that it is best to disregard their talk and judge only their actions. A judge is a law student who marks his own examination papers. It is very difficult to live among people you love and hold back from offering them advice. The true secret of giving advice is, after you have honestly given it, to be perfectly indifferent whether it is taken or not, and never persist in trying to set people right. Please give me some good advice in your next letter. I promise not to follow it. It is not advisable, James, to venture unsolicited opinions. You should spare yourself the embarrassing discovery of their exact value to your listener. We did not change as we grew older; we just became more clearly ourselves. A jury consists of twelve persons chosen to decide who has the better lawyer. Let me advise thee not to talk of thyself as being old. There is something in Mind Cure, after all, and if thee continually talks of thyself as being old, thee may perhaps bring on some of the infirmities of age. At least I would not risk it if I were thee. I have enjoyed greatly the second blooming that comes when you finish the life of the emotions and of personal relations; and suddenly find - at the age of fifty, say - that a whole new life has opened before you, filled with things you can think about, study, or read about...It is as if a fresh sap of ideas and thoughts was rising in you. Though it sounds absurd, it is true to say I felt younger at sixty than I felt at twenty. Of all the self-fulfilling prophecies in our culture, the assumption that aging means decline and poor health is probably the deadliest. |
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