i
We have got into life by stealth and _petitio principii_, by the free use
of that contradiction in terms which we declare to be the most outrageous
violation of our reason. We have wriggled into it by holding that
everything is both one and many, both infinite in time and space and yet
finite, both like and unlike to the same thing, both itself and not
itself, both free and yet inexorably fettered, both every adjective in
the dictionary and at the same time the flat contradiction of every one
of them.
ii
The beginning of life is the beginning of an illusion to the effect that
there is such a thing as free will and that there is such another thing
as necessity—the recognition of the fact that there is an “I can” and an
“I cannot,” an “I may” and an “I must.”
iii
Life is not so much a riddle to be read as a Gordian knot that will get
cut sooner or later.
iv
Life is the distribution of an error—or errors.
v
Murray (the publisher) said that my _Life of Dr. Butler_ was an omnium
gatherum. Yes, but life is an omnium gatherum.
vi
Life is a superstition. But superstitions are not without their value.
The snail’s shell is a superstition, slugs have no shells and thrive just
as well. But a snail without a shell would not be a slug unless it had
also the slug’s indifference to a shell.
vii
Life is one long process of getting tired.
viii
My days run through me as water through a sieve.
ix
Life is the art of drawing sufficient conclusions from insufficient
premises.
x
Life is eight parts cards and two parts play, the unseen world is made
manifest to us in the play.
xi
Lizards generally seem to have lost their tails by the time they reach
middle life. So have most men.
xii
A sense of humour keen enough to show a man his own absurdities, as well
as those of other people, will keep him from the commission of all sins,
or nearly all, save those that are worth committing.
xiii
Life is like music, it must be composed by ear, feeling and instinct, not
by rule. Nevertheless one had better know the rules, for they sometimes
guide in doubtful cases—though not often.
xiv
There are two great rules of life, the one general and the other
particular. The first is that every one can, in the end, get what he
wants if he only tries. This is the general rule. The particular rule
is that every individual is, more or less, an exception to the general
rule.
xv
Nature is essentially mean, mediocre. You can have schemes for raising
the level of this mean, but not for making every one two inches taller
than his neighbour, and this is what people really care about.
xvi
All progress is based upon a universal innate desire on the part of every
organism to live beyond its income.