Find what you love and let it kill you. Let it drain you of your all, cling onto your back, and weigh you down into eventual nothingness. Let it devour your remains, for all things will kill you, both slowly & fastly, but it’s much better to be killed by a lover.
Who but an atheist could think of leaving the world without having first made up his account?
It is then he will find in what mighty stead that heathen goddess, that virtue, which you and all other deists of the age adore, will stand him.
Tom Jones (1749) by Henry Fielding
Avoid at all cost the priorities in your life that aren’t in your top five, because they’re the ambitions insufficiently important to form the core of your life, yet seductive enough to distract you from the priorities that matter most.
Anomie Theory describes the effects of early industrialism and the resulting social division of labor with rising suicide rate. Accordingly, in times of social upheaval, “collective consciousness” is weakened and previous norms, moral convictions, and controls dwindle.
“Computer,” said Zaphod, “tell us again what our present trajectory is.”
“A real pleasure, feller,” it burbled, “we are currently in orbit at an altitude of 300 miles around the legendary planet of Magrathea.”
“Proving nothing,” said Ford. “I wouldn’t trust that computer to speak my weight.”
“I can do that for you, sure,” enthused the computer, punching out more tickertape. “I can even work out your personality problems to 10 decimal places if it will help.”
Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams (1979)
When you’re in a place of natural silence, you’re not alone, and you can feel it. Whether it’s birdcalls from miles away or the proximity of a giant tree whose warm tones you can feel, there’s a presence, It’s a quieting experience.
MACBETH: Speak if you can. What are you? FIRST WITCH: All hail, Macbeth! Hail to thee, Thane of Glamis! SECOND WITCH All hail, Macbeth! Hail to thee, Thane of Cawdor! THIRD WITCH All hail, Macbeth, that shalt be king hereafter! BANQUO Good sir, why do you start and seem to fear things that do sound so fair? I’ th’ name of truth, are you fantastical, or that indeed which outwardly you show? My noble partner you greet with present grace and great prediction of noble having and of royal hope, that he seems rapt withal.
MACBETH Stay, you imperfect speakers. Tell me more. A prosperous gentleman, and to be king stands not within the prospect of belief. Witches vanish. BANQUO The earth hath bubbles, as the water has, and these are of them. Whither are they vanished? MACBETH Into the air, and what seemed corporal melted, as breath into the wind. Would they had stayed! BANQUO Were such things here as we do speak about? Or have we eaten on the insane root that takes the reason prisoner? MACBETH Your children shall be kings. BANQUO You shall be king.
It is the part of ourselves we do not normally admit to consciousness, let alone expression in action, that slips past the inner censor into our dreams and fantasies.
OUR REBEL EMOTIONSby Bernard Mobbs (1970)
This devilishly charming fellow is only a human nature characteristic. He is human nature itself; the corporeal personality honoring, respecting, reverencing, adoring and worshipping itself as king and as god in his own world.
THE WORD – A PHILOSOPHY (1958) by Edna Sarah Beardsley (re: devil)