And so we take a holiday, a vacation, to gain release from this bondage for a space, to stand back from the rush of things and breathe again. But a holiday is a respite, not a cure. The more we need holidays, the more certain it is that the disease has conquered us and not we it. More and more holidays just to get away from it all is a sure sign of a decaying civilization; it was one of the most obvious marks of the breakdown of the Roman empire. It is a symptom that we haven't learned how to live so as to re-create ourselves in our work instead of being sapped by it. A car should always be charging its battery as it runs. If it simply uses up without putting back, it has to go into dock to be recharged. It is not a sign that we are running particularly well if we are constantly needing to go into dock.
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If there is a symbol of our age, perhaps it is something that every factory worker does each day of their working lives -- I refer to clocking in. (Very soon probably they won't even have to do that; the clock will itself observe them by radar.) In the ancient world when a person entered a temple, each made a votive offering to a god or a goddess at the door. As twentieth century people file into their shrines, they obediently pay their due to the god that regulates their lives -- the clock. It is the clock that measures us, that silent witness that keeps our going in and our coming out and relentlessly records our every movement. That is where all our organization and machinery to free us from time, to save us time, has brought us. Never before have we had such control over things, and never before have we been so enslaved by them. And of nothing is this more true than of time.
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If, for instance, they have heard something from the postman, they attribute it to a semi-official statement; if they have fallen into conversation with a stranger at a bar, they can conscientiously describe him as a source that has hitherto proved unimpeachable. It is only when the journalist is reporting a whim of his own, and one to which he attaches minor importance, that he defines it as the opinion of well-informed circles.
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An artist must be a reactionary. He has to stand out against the tenor of the age and not go flopping along.
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Of children as of procreation - the pleasure momentary, the posture ridiculous, the expense damnable.
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Evelyn slapped Raymond on the back with a laugh. You must be starved old friend. Come into my apartments, and we'll suffer through a deep breakfast of pure sunlight.
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Every minute you are thinking of evil, you might have been thinking of good instead. Refuse to pander to a morbid interest in your own misdeeds. Pick yourself up, be sorry, shake yourself, and go on again.
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Saints are simply men and women who have fulfilled their natural obligation which is to approach God.
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After all it is those who have a deep and real inner life who are best able to deal with the irritating details of outer life.
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Adoration is caring for God above all else.
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It is a curious thing ... that every creed promises a paradise which will be absolutely uninhabitable for anyone of civilized taste.
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Suffering is none the less acute and much more lasting when it is put into words.
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If we can't stamp out literature in the country, we can at least stop its being brought in from outside.
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I do not believe the expenditure of $2.50 for a book entitles the purchaser to the personal friendship of the author.
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We all make Madison Avenue to be the big, bad wolf, but Evelyn and those women who had inner lives were not manipulated by the advertisers.
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Punctuality is the virtue of the bored.
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If politicians and scientist were lazier, how much happier we should all be.
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Manners are especially the need of the plain. The pretty can get away with anything.
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Long-range planning works best in the short term
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The human mind is inspired enough when it comes to inventing horrors; it is when it tries to invent a Heaven that it shows itself cloddish.
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It is a curious thing... that every creed promises a paradise which will be absolutely uninhabitable for anyone of civilized taste.
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What is youth except a man or a woman before it is ready or fit to be seen?
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What is youth except a man or a woman before it is ready or fit to be seen
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A belief which does not spring from a conviction in the emotions is no belief at all.
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We cherish our friends not for their ability to amuse us, but for ours to amuse them.
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Other nations use force; we Britons alone use Might.
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Friendship is the golden thread that ties the hearts of all hearts of all the world.
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I can feel the wind go by when I run. It feels good. It feels fast.
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