I Accept The Fact I Am An

Never Forget That Only Dead Fish Swim With The Stream.

Accumulating Knowledge Is A Form Of Avarice And Lends Itself To Another Version Of The Midas Story ...man [is] So Avid For Knowledge That Everything That He Touches Turns To Facts; His Faith Becomes Theology; His Love Becomes Lechery; His Wisdom Becomes Science; Pursuing Meaning, He Ignores Truth.

A Ready Means Of Being Cherished By The English Is To Adopt The Simple Expedient Of Living A Long Time. I Have Little Doubt That If, Say, Oscar Wilde Had Lived Into His Nineties, Instead Of Dying In His Forties, He Would Have Been Considered A Benign, Distinguished Figure Suitable To Preside At A School Prize-giving Or To Instruct And Exhort Scout Masters At Their Jamborees. He Might Even Have Been Knighted.

I Don't Think That It Would Make The Slightest Difference To Life And To The Aspects Of Life That Interest Me If We Could Go To The Moon Tomorrow, Because I Think What Really Makes Life Interesting Is The Big Question "why?"

When I Look Back On My Life Nowadays, Which I Sometimes Do, What Strikes Me Most Forcibly About It Is That What Seemed At The Time Most Significant And Seductive, Seems Now Most Futile And Absurd. For Instance, Success In All Of Its Various Guises; Being Known And Being Praised; Ostensible Pleasures, Like Acquiring Money Or Seducing Women, Or Traveling, Going To And Fro In The World And Up And Down In It Like Satan, Exploring And Experiencing Whatever Vanity Fair Has To Offer. In Retrospect All These Exercises In Self-gratification Seem Pure Fantasy, What Pascal Called “licking The Earth.