 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
page 1
page2
page3
page4
page5
page6
page7
page8
page9
page10
page11
page12
page13
page14
page15
page16
page17
page18
page19
page20
page21
page22
page23
page24
page25
page26
page27
page28
page29
page30
page31
page32
page33
page34
page35
page36
page37
page38
page39
page40
page41
page42
page43
page44
page45
page46
page 47
page48
page49
page50
page51
page52
page53
page54
page55
page56
page57
page58
page 59
page59
page 60
page61
page62
page 63
page 64
page 65
page66
page67
page 68
page 69
page 70
Page 71
page 72
pare 73
page 74
page 75
page76
page 77
page 78
page 79
page 80
page 81
page 82
page 83
page 84
page 85
page 86
page 87
page 88
page 89
page 90
page 91
page92
page93
page 94
page 95
page 96
page 97
page98
|
|
| QUOTATIONS 1629-1646 |
| ||||||
| 1629. The way we treat other people should be governed not by how it affects them, as the moralists preach, but by what they will do to us in response, as the pragmatists would advice. And since our well-being is more important to us as that of the others one should disregard ministrations of the moralists (most of us can achieve this with surprisingly little efforts) and follow the worldly warning of the pragmatists, which is - one can abuse with impunity and for a long time the so-called "good people", for they are compassionate, understanding and forgiving. In a word - good. But beware of the "bad people" and treat them with a kid's glove. Do not cross, insult or injure them. They are unforgiving and vengeful. They hold the grudge for a long time and wouldn't rest until, if they can, repay ten-fold for whatever harm you done them. Always remember - they are bad! 1630. Ever since (and probably even earlier in some lost works by some other forgotten ancient writers) Plato produced in Republic an utopian version of the ideal society, ideal because it was governed by philosophers, which were the intellectuals of the past, the intellectuals of the later times have been grappling with this nagging puzzle: "Why the world is always ruled by the people so much and so obviously inferior to us in intellectual capacities?" The answer, however, is quite simple. Since the like understand the like and since the mankind in general consist of the mediocre and base, the base and mediocre rulers who can fully empathize with such people, being very much like them, are naturally more acceptable in this role than the intellectuals who, the truth to be told, have very little in common with an ordinary man. As a matter of fact they look down upon him as, yes "mediocre and base" and want to do him a great favor by changing him into something resembling themselves, the intellectuals, which is both impossible and foolish. And that's why they will never attain the power to rule, for people, as the saying goes, got the rulers they deserve , that is who are exactly like them. 1631. When the journalists have nothing concrete to write about because no actions are taking place and nothing is being said, they often resort to describing the minute details of what they witness, hoping to find some significance in them. Let me give an example from a report by the newspaper columnist who went looking for a story at the political rally: "The rally was at the old Palais Royale dance-hall in Toronto. I waited outside curious to see Chretien arrive. He got out of a car and walked to the entrance at breakneck speed. He wasn't smiling. His eyes darted from side to side, on the lookout for somebody he should shake hands with. He looked like he was psyching himself up to win over the crowd." Now, all these mundane details are presented as revealing the character of the subject, where in fact there could have been many different and simple reasons for such behavior, none of them having anything specific or revelatory said about Mr. Chretien. I also suspect that those numerous description of weather, landscapes, architecture, anteriors, etc. in the works of fiction bespeak the absence of anything relevant to say at this or that point in writing. 1632. The common tragedy of the great men is that their ideas are invariably getting distorted, sometimes beyond recognition, by the followers and admirers, who as ordinary men are inherently incapable of comprehending the greatness and yet drawn to it in a way, but to a much lesser degree, the mere mortals are drawn to the essentially incomprehensible God. 1633. The amount of time and energy, the degree of dedication required nowadays to follow all advices on how to lead a healthy, well balanced life, which include but not limited to dietary rules, naturopathy, vitamin intake in proper dosages, in proper sequence and proper time, aerobic exercises, running, etc.,etc. leave no time or space for anything else. Such life is literarily becomes a life for a life sake. 1634. Blessed be Florence, for her loss became the world's gain. In 1302 it banned Dante from the city for a period of two years and fined him heavily. Failing to make payment, he was condemned to death should he ever return to Florence. He never did. Instead, being deprived of any fulfillment of his political ambitions and sent into exile, he spent the rest of his life writing The Divine Comedy, the only outlet left to him to pour into all his enormous passions, genius and aspirations. 210 years later, in 1512 another Florentine, Machiavelli having been deprived of office and after brief imprisonment made redundant, retired to his estate near Florence where having nothing else to do he sublimated his deprivation into the subliminal work of literature, The Prince. Neither my misfortunes nor my works could be compared to Dante and Machiavelli. And yet, if nothing else I have this in common with both, and probably with many other writers - I began to write when all other venues of social life where closed to me and all that was left were a pen and a page. And nobody could deprive me of them. 1635. To sincerely and totally dedicate one's life to God, as monks and nuns of all religions do, is nothing less than total and sincere rejection of life, but without making one final step - separation from life through suicide. God is this case is used as the last reason to go on living. 1636. For as far as my memory goes back, I ‘ve always been an exceptionally diligent student. Never missed a class, neither at school nor at university. Have read thousands of books. Never considered any article in the daily newspaper not being worthy of my attention. Went to hundreds of lectures, watched numerous educational, cultural, historical, etc. programs on TV. Never missed a news broadcast on the radio, or any other interesting program it offered. In a word, I never thought of myself as one who knows everything and has nothing new to learn. And now, to my great consternation, I do. Anything I read, watch, listen to doesn't bring the new knowledge or new insights, or new ideas. I constantly get the impression that I've read it, heard it, seen it before, many times. But what even more frustrating and depressing is that I often feel having better grasp and deeper understanding of the topic under consideration than the people who write or speak on it. Why is it depressing to me? Because learning every day something new from the others, supposedly more knowledgeable than I, was, believe it or not, the main purpose of my life. I am almost 65, with about 60 years of learning behind me. But it seems now, that as far as my learning is concerned I have nothing to look forward to. And this is really depressing. Of course, the traditional way out is to share one's knowledge and understanding with the others, especially those who had before neither time nor inclination to go to such length as I did to acquire it. Alas, this outlet is denied to me. I have no recognized position in society, like teacher, minister, public figure, etc., to do so. Socially, I'm archetypical "nobody". And nobody pays any attention to "nobody". Another way to share one's insights and ideas is to write. I do write and the few who read what I wrote don't usually consider this as a total waste of their time. But they are few, and I am afraid, getting fewer and fewer. And so I am stuck with all those clever thoughts, deep insights and original ideas which will buried in my grave with me - yet another obscure, solitary intellectual whose mind and lifelong commitment to learning and thinking have been wasted. How many of us are there, were there, will be there? The world would never know. Out of all the wastage mankind is guilty of the squandering of human intellect must be the most tragic one. 1637. I just realized that no matter how long I live my life would always be but a work in progress, which shall be, sooner or later, interrupted by death before its completion. 1638. The way I see it, the most appropriate words to describe my existence ("life" would be too generous a term for what I have) are tedium, boredom, general discomfort and perpetual tiredness. And then there are sudden moments or occasional periods of various duration when I am afflicted with acute physical and/or psychological pain. Or some problems of reality threaten to shatter the fragile equilibrium of my daily routine. And almost instinctively, I rally all my meager energies to overcome these moments, to ease the pain, to restore equilibrium. But for what? To return to existence which I really don't value, which doesn't bring me any joy, not even occasional satisfaction. Why not let the chips to fall as they may? Why not let fate to take charge? Why not just surrender to whatever befalls me? Or to use the metaphorical language, which poets suppose to do, tired and exhausted I drag myself across the monotonous, featureless desert of despair, without knowing where I am going. Now and then my purposeless progress is interrupted by the obstacles of some kind of emergences, the obstacles I do my best to overcome. But for what - to return to this road of desolation leading nowhere. 1639. My experience of being in a restaurant (though I have to admit is rather limited, due primarily to monetary considerations) is always the same. While being blatantly ripped off, I know that under no circumstances and in the slightest possible way I am allowed to resist it, for otherwise the scorn hipped on one who attempts to and thus reveals himself to be clearly not a gentleman could be absolutely unbearable. There is only one honorable way to escape the extortionists, i.e. pretend having the best time of your life and pay the ransom. 1640. Having read, literally, thousands of books, I am fully aware that many a writer write better than I do. But I also know, well enough, and am not afraid to say so, again after reading hundreds of writers, that none of them can or would say what I have to say. And that's why I keep on writing, though, as I've said already twice, having read thousands of books I'm fully aware that many a writer write better than I do. 1641. For quite a while it seems that the only purpose of writing yet another biography of the famous men of the past has been to "discover" or imply his concealed or latent homosexuality. It is a kind of "outing of the dead" exercise, but, contrary to the intentions of the biographers, it reveals much more about their present then about the past of their subjects. 1642. When one feels separated from one's body, as we all occasionally do, though some, undoubtedly, more often than the others, the idea of suicide doesn't sound so terrible, so blasphemous. For while being in such a state, one, presumably, doesn't kill oneself but simply destroy an alien object - the body. Of course, in reality it amounts to the same thing, unless one believes in immortality of the soul. But at the moment one doesn't think that way. For here is this body, the source of the endless and inescapable pain, and the destruction of it seems the only sensible and logical way to free oneself from this pain. 1643. As a young man I used to look down on ambitious people. They seemed to me to be undignified and grasping, and the methods they employed to achieve their goals often questionable from ethical point of view or downright immoral. I suspected that a truly ambitious person would stop at nothing to get what he wanted and, if necessary, wouldn't hesitate to step "over the dead body" of anyone who is in his way. Moreover, with the high-mindedness of an idealistic youth I judged even the goals of the ambitious to be paltry and certainly not worthy the ethical sacrifices and moral compromises one has to make to achieve them ( I didn't know then that in the truly ambitious such considerations play a very minor and sporadic part). Now, if you are waiting for me to admit that I was wrong, as "mature" people are expected to do, or to say that I was too harsh and too judgmental, you are going to be disappointed. If anything my early opinions regarding ambitious people have become even stronger, supported now by the life -long experience of observing them in action. What I suspected many years ago has been proven true. To sum it up, when I was young the esthetics of ambition were repugnant to me. And now that I'm old they still are. But as my life's drawing to a close I discover, belatedly, that there is more to ambitions that I thought and felt in my youth. I realize now that ambition brings meaning to life, and the ambitious and therefore active (these two adjectives are inseparable) people, unlike the unambitious and therefore passive (also inseparable terms) would not allow life to just happen to them, but put themselves in command of their lives. They are in control and lead life they want, while the modest and pure at heart like me never do what they want, but are always at back and call of someone else and their lives are used by the ambitious as a fuel, a prop, a device. And after being used up, they are thrown away, discarded like refuse, not good for anything anymore. Their purity is their only consolation, the paltry prize for meaningless and wasted lives. For a life can only have meaning when one is in charge of his life. If one is not, than his life is for sake of someone else's, and such life is essentially meaningless as applied to this individual. But one cannot be in charge if one doesn't have ambition at least to be in charge. And no one can define for you the meaning of your life; you have to do it yourself. Therefore, to have a meaningful life, to have a life filled with meaning one has to have an ambition to have a meaning, for no matter where it is directed an ambition is first and foremost a quest for meaning. Moreover, in pursuing their ambitions, the ambitious ones , if successful, acquire position and status which give them power to have a meaningful life one sort or another. And even if at the end they don't exactly fulfill their ambitions they have nevertheless won life's most important prize - they and nobody else were in charge of their lives. This sure should count for something, especially in comparison with the modest and virtuous ones who got nothing, but the satisfaction of a good servant, out of life of slavery to someone else's ambitions and plans. For that is exactly what people like me have, nothing. No position, no status, no power and therefore no life worth speaking of. The good guys not only finish last. They have to ask for permission to even run the race, and more often than not are denied even that. For nothing is given in this world to those who just ask meekly- faint heart never won fair lady. If meaningful life is good, and nobody would deny that, then one has to fight for it. Like everything else it's governed by the law of supply and demand. For though everyone is potentially entitle to have a meaningful life, in actuality like with many other good things the demand exceeds supply, i.e. there are not enough "meaningful lives" around for everyone who wants them. Hence the competition, the struggle, the winners and losers. Consider, for example, one who sees the meaning of his life in being a politician. He runs for an elected office, but so are many others for the same position. And if he wins, the others lose. He is going to have a meaningful life, the others won't. And so in all other fields of human activities. Even in families, one member's meaningful life often comes at the expense of the other members, for they can't have "it" because he has. The sad truth is that one who got meaningful life by the very act of it is denying it to someone else. This is a tragic dilemma of human existence which no philosophical system or political ideology has ever succeeded in resolving. Many don't even realize it exists or if they do, have enough courage to acknowledge it. And finally there is another thing, for there is always another thing - many a man shall go into a grave without ever finding out what would have made their life meaningful. And so they suffer without knowing the cause, which is not to say that knowing it would make the suffering less painful. For it could make it even worse - knowing what you want and never being able, no matter what you do, to get it can make one's life a real hell. 1644. The dream of every writer, the abiding ambition, the relentless quest is to write a book after which he could, in all clear conscience, say: "Now, that I've written it, I may die, for my life's task has been accomplished." 1645.Is life of a Jew any easier than of a non-Jew? Doesn't he have to endure the same hardships, overcome the same difficulties, fight the same battles to survive as everyone else? And on the top of these universal cruelties of life, which are the fate of man in this world, he is subjected to the indignities and sometimes horrors of anti-Semitism. And yet in comparison with a non-Jew there is in a Jew a remarkable absence of hardening of soul, of coarse fierceness, of blinding hatefulness, of senseless brutality, of malicious joy in inflicting pain on the week and defenseless. For it is accepted as axiomatic nowadays that the hardened and brutal criminals are made such by the harshness and brutality of their life experience. Now, if this theory is true, than the Jews have to be the most hardened and brutal of them all. But any objective observer of the Jews would see quite the opposite. For the Jews, on average, are the most kind and considerate of people on this planet, anxious to forgive and to accept, to sympathize and empathize, eager for friendship, for mutual understanding and peaceful coexistence. So, is this theory that makes environment and life experience responsible for who we are wrong, or are the Jews somehow different from the others, the non-Jews? To be a Jew is to forgive Them who have sentenced Us to live in shame of un-revenged insults forever gnawing at our hearts. To be a Jew is to invent God who is Love without end, a lion lying with a lamb, and Brotherhood of Us and Them. 1646.Damn you, Gentiles! The righteous among you are too few, the murderous are too many. Damn your random acts of kindness - they will not redeem your habitual cruelty. Damn your sporadic decency - it will not redeem you're your inbred malice. Damn your occasional moments of shame and guilt of what you have done (and are doing)to us - they will not redeem your ever present hate and self -justification of it. You think we should be thankful for these crumbs of benevolence. Find another grateful beggar, look for another charity case. Take away your handouts, give me justice, not the pitiful and rare compensations- a spoon of sugar would not make a sack of salt sweet . Remember that I am your neighbor and love me as you love yourself. If you are Russian treat me as if my name was Ivanov, if you are English treat me as if my name was Smith. Even if I "look Jewish", especially if I "look Jewish" . For it is as natural for a Jew "to look Jewish" as for a Russian "to look Russian" and for an English "to look English". And if you can't love me, if you can't give me justice, if you can't treat me as one of your own, then keep your distance. For how am I to know whether you're bringing peace or a sward? |
 Sign Guestbook |
 View Guestbook |
|
. |
| Visitors: 00391 |