Life and Existence

As some to church repair,

Nature, and Nature’s laws lay hid in night.

Old politicians chew on wisdom past,

Search then the Ruling Passion: There, alone,

’Tis education forms the common mind,

The ruling passion, be it what it will,

As yet a child, nor yet a fool to fame,

The Muse but served to ease some friend, not wife,

How happy is the blameless Vestal’s lot!

Vital spark of heav’nly flame!

Lo! thy dread empire, Chaos! is restored;

The fever called ‘Living’

The fever called ‘Living’

All that we see or seem

I was a child and she was a child,

Behold! human beings living in a underground den … Like ourselves … they see only their own shadows, or the shadows of one another, which the fire throws on the opposite wall of the cave.

And so with the objects of knowledge: these derive from the Good not only their power of being known, but their very being and reality; and Goodness is not the same thing as being, but even beyond being, surpassing it in dignity and power.

Is that which is holy loved by the gods because it is holy, or is it holy because it is loved by the gods?

Love set you going like a fat gold watch.

The woman is perfected

Is there no way out of the mind?

Mankind is a dream of a shadow.

When I was the age of these children I could draw like Raphael: it took me many years to learn how to draw like these children.

Man is born to live, not to prepare for life.