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09a3e04
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Though I obviously have no proof of this, the one aspect of life that seems clear to me is that good people do whatever they believe is the right thing to do. Being virtuous is hard, not easy. The idea of doing good things simply because you're good seems like a zero-sum game; I'm not even sure those actions would still qualify as 'good,' since they'd merely be a function of normal behavior. Regardless of what kind of god you believe in--a loving god, a vengeful god, a capricious god, a snooty beret-wearing French god, or whatever--one has to assume that you can't be penalized for doing the things you believe to be truly righteous and just. Certainly, this creates some pretty glaring problems: Hitler may have thought he was serving God. Stalin may have thought he was serving God (or something vaguely similar). I'm certain Osama bin Laden was he was serving God. It's not hard to fathom that all of those maniacs were certain that what they were doing was right. Meanwhile, I do things that I are wrong; they're not on the same scale as incinerating Jews or blowing up skyscrapers, but my motivations might be worse. I have looked directly into the eyes of a woman I loved and told her lies for no reason, except that those lies would allow me to continue having sex with another woman I cared about less. This act did not kill 20 million Russian peasants, but it might be more 'diabolical' in a literal sense. If I died and found out I was going to hell and Stalin was in heaven, I would note the irony, but I couldn't complain. I don't make the fucking rules.
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good
virtues
hell
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Chuck Klosterman |
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7f4becc
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Even if it were possible to cast my horoscope in this one life, and to make an accurate prediction about my future, it would not be possible to 'show' it to me because as soon as I saw it my future would change by definition. This is why Werner Heisenberg's adaptation of the Hays Office--the so-called principle of uncertainty whereby the act of measuring something has the effect of altering the measurement--is of such importance. In my case the difference is often made by publicity. For example, and to boast of one of my few virtues, I used to derive pleasure from giving my time to bright young people who showed promise as writers and who asked for my help. Then some profile of me quoted someone who disclosed that I liked to do this. Then it became something widely said of me, whereupon it became almost impossible for me to go on doing it, because I started to receive far more requests than I could respond to, let alone satisfy. Perception modifies reality: when I abandoned the smoking habit of more than three decades I was given a supposedly helpful pill called Wellbutrin. But as soon as I discovered that this was the brand name for an antidepressant, I tossed the bottle away. There may be successful methods for overcoming the blues but for me they cannot include a capsule that says: 'Fool yourself into happiness, while pretending not to do so.' I should actually my mind to be strong enough to circumvent such a trick.
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depression
future
reality
happiness
life
assistance
bupropion
hays-office
measurement
mentorship
publicity
soothsaying
horoscopes
uncertainty-principle
werner-heisenberg
self-delusion
perception
virtues
writers
smoking
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Christopher Hitchens |
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f296f2e
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An appreciation for irony.
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virtues
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Christopher Hitchens |
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800f84b
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Faith. Closely followed--in view of the overall shortage of time--by patience.
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faith
death
religion
life
virtues
patience
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Christopher Hitchens |
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48fe9e9
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Perhaps man was neither good nor bad, was only a machine in an insensate universe--his courage no more than a reflex to danger, like the automatic jump at the pin-prick. Perhaps there were no virtues, unless jumping at pin-pricks was a virtue, and humanity only a mechanical donkey led on by the iron carrot of love, through the pointless treadmill of reproduction.
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the-absurd
meaninglessness
virtues
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T.H. White |
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f40814e
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Justice came from a fight amid complexities, and required all the virtues in the world merely to be perceived.
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virtues
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Mark Helprin |
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1721343
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It's a queer thing is a man's soul. It is the whole of him. Which means it is the unknown him, as well as the known. It seems to me just funny, professors and Benjamins fixing the functions of the soul. Why, the soul of man is a vast forest, and all Benjamin intended was a neat back garden. And we've all got to fit into his kitchen garden scheme of things. Hail Columbia ! The soul of man is a dark forest. The Hercynian Wood that scared the Romans so, and out of which came the white- skinned hordes of the next civilization. Who knows what will come out of the soul of man? The soul of man is a dark vast forest, with wild life in it. Think of Benjamin fencing it off! Oh, but Benjamin fenced a little tract that he called the soul of man, and proceeded to get it into cultivation. Providence, forsooth! And they think that bit of barbed wire is going to keep us in pound for ever? More fools they. ... Man is a moral animal. All right. I am a moral animal. And I'm going to remain such. I'm not going to be turned into a virtuous little automaton as Benjamin would have me. 'This is good, that is bad. Turn the little handle and let the good tap flow,' saith Benjamin, and all America with him. 'But first of all extirpate those savages who are always turning on the bad tap.' I am a moral animal. But I am not a moral machine. I don't work with a little set of handles or levers. The Temperance- silence-order- resolution-frugality-industry-sincerity - justice- moderation-cleanliness-tranquillity-chastity-humility keyboard is not going to get me going. I'm really not just an automatic piano with a moral Benjamin getting tunes out of me. Here's my creed, against Benjamin's. This is what I believe: 'That I am I.' ' That my soul is a dark forest.' 'That my known self will never be more than a little clearing in the forest.' 'Thatgods, strange gods, come forth f rom the forest into the clearing of my known self, and then go back.' ' That I must have the courage to let them come and go.' ' That I will never let mankind put anything over me, but that I will try always to recognize and submit to the gods in me and the gods in other men and women.' There is my creed. He who runs may read. He who prefers to crawl, or to go by gasoline, can call it rot.
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the-unconscious
virtues
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D.H. Lawrence |
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bd730a0
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These are illusions of popular history which successful religion must promote: Evil men never prosper; only the brave deserve the fair; honesty is the best policy; actions speak louder than words; virtue always triumpths; a good deed is its own rewards; any bad human can be reformed; religious talismans protect one from demon possession; only females understand the ancient mysteries; the rich are doomed to unhappiness
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virtue
history
good
morality
goodness
faith
religion
religious
belief-systems
dune-arrakis
dune-house-atreides
evil-men
falsehoods
justice-of-god
dune-messiah
dune
moral-law
religion-philosophy
falsehood
historical-perspective
history-of-thought
history-of-mankind
belief-system
religion-spirituality
religious-faith
historical
beliefs
religions
moral
virtues
morals
evil
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Frank Herbert |
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9c58c22
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<> said Alfred.
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irony
virtues
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Harriet Beecher Stowe |
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92e1a55
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It is apt to be so, and it is hard to bear; for, though we do not want trumpets blown, we do like to have out little virtues appreciated, and cannot help feeling disappointed if they are not.
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eight-cousins
louisa-may-alcott
virtues
disappointment
human-nature
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Louisa May Alcott |
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ff36d4b
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The virtues have secret names: they are, so difficult of access, secret things. Everything that is worthy is secret.
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secret
the-black-prince
worthy
virtues
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Iris Murdoch |
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6ab0705
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It's far too easy to tote around a pocketbook of virtues when people are around but the truth always claws its way out in silence. This business of quiet and aloneness is working me through and through.
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silence
truth
quiet
virtues
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Donna VanLiere |