Any pain through which a man can live at all becomes unfelt
as soon as it becomes habitual. Pain consists not in that which is
now endured but in the strong memory of something better that is
still recent. And so, happiness lies in the memory of a recent worse
and the expectation of a better that is to come soon.
Ignorance of Death
i
The fear of death is instinctive because in so many past generations
we have feared it. But how did we come to know what death is so that
we should fear it? The answer is that we do not know what death is
and that this is why we fear it.
ii
If a man know not life which he hath seen how shall he know death
which he hath not seen?
iii
If a man has sent his teeth and his hair and perhaps two or three
limbs to the grave before him, the presumption should be that, as he
knows nothing further of these when they have once left him, so will
he know nothing of the rest of him when it too is dead. The whole
may surely be argued from the parts.
iv
To write about death is to write about that of which we have had
little practical experience. We can write about conscious life, but
we have no consciousness of the deaths we daily die. Besides, we
cannot eat our cake and have it. We cannot have tabulae rasae and
tabulae scriptae at the same time. We cannot be at once dead enough
to be reasonably registered as such, and alive enough to be able to
tell people all about it.
Pages:
462
463
464
465
466
467
468
469
470
471
472
473
474
475
476
477
478
479
480
481
482
483
484
485
486