Life and Existence

What is it, then, that this desire and this inability proclaim to us, but that there was once in man a true happiness of which there now remain to him only the mark and empty trace, which he in vain tries to fill from all his surroundings, seeking from things absent the help he does not obtain in things present? But these are all inadequate, because the infinite abyss can only be filled by an infinite and immutable object, that is to say, only by God Himself.

People ought to be one of two things, young or old. No; what’s the use of fooling? People ought to be one of two things, young or dead.

[ On being warned by her doctor that if she didn’t stop drinking she would be dead within a month :] Promises, promises!

[ On being told at a party that people were ducking for apples :] There, but for a typographical error, is the story of my life.

[ Telegram to Mary Sherwood, who finally had her baby after a much-ballyhooed pregnancy, 1915 :]

[ Her suggested epitaph for herself :] Excuse My Dust.

One cannot really be Catholic & grown-up.

Enormous Changes at the Last Minute.

If you want to keep a secret you must also hide it from yourself.

And when memory failed and written records were falsified—when that happened, the claim of the Party to have improved the conditions of human life had got to be accepted, because there did not exist, and never again could exist, any standard against which it could be tested.

If the Party could thrust its hand into the past and say of this or that event, it never happened —that, surely was more terrifying than mere torture and death?

Every year fewer and fewer words, and the range of consciousness always a little smaller.

War is the greatest of all agents of change. It speeds up all processes, wipes out minor distinctions, brings realities to the surface. Above all, war brings it home to the individual that he is not altogether an individual. It is only because they are aware of this that men will die on the field of battle.

In the past few days . . . it has become evident to me that I no longer have a strong enough political base in the Congress to justify continuing that effort [to remain in office as president despite the Watergate scandal]. . . . But with the disappearance of that base, I now believe that the constitutional purpose has been served, and there is no longer a need for the process to be prolonged.

[ Welcoming back the crew of Apollo 11 from the first moon landing :] This is the greatest week in the history of the world since the Creation.

It is precisely facts that do not exist, only interpretations .

Ich lehre euch den Übermenschen. Der Mensch ist Etwas, das überwunden werden soll .

When Zarathustra was alone he spoke thus to his heart: “Could it be possible? This old saint in the forest has not yet heard anything of this, that God is dead! ”

Gott ist tot: aber so wie die Art der Menschen ist, wird es vielleicht noch Jahrtausende lang Höhlen geben, in denen man seinen Schatten zeigt.—Und wir—wir müssen auch noch seinen Schatten besiegen!

Worse, to have lived without even attempting to lay claim to one’s portion of the earth; to have lived and died as one has been born, unnecessary and unaccommodated.

Worse, to have lived without even attempting to lay claim to one’s portion of the earth; to have lived and died as one has been born, unnecessary and unaccommodated.

Human life is but a series of footnotes to a vast obscure unfinished masterpiece.

Human life is but a series of footnotes to a vast obscure unfinished masterpiece.

Like so many aging college people, Pnin had long since ceased to notice the existence of students on the campus.