Part 3 (1/2)

Life

i

We have got into life by stealth and pet.i.tio 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 s.p.a.ce 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 superst.i.tion. But superst.i.tions are not without their value. The snail's sh.e.l.l is a superst.i.tion, slugs have no sh.e.l.ls and thrive just as well. But a snail without a sh.e.l.l would not be a slug unless it had also the slug's indifference to a sh.e.l.l.

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