People who use their erudition to write for a learned minority ... don't seem to me favored by fortune but rather to be pitied for... their continuous self-torture. They add, change, remove, lay aside, take up, rephrase, show to their friends, keep for nine years and are never satisfied. And their futile reward, a word of praise from a handful of people, they win at such a cost--so many late nights, such loss of sleep, sweetest of all things, and so much sweat and anguish ... their health deteriorates, their looks are destroyed, they suffer partial or total blindness, poverty, ill-will, denial of pleasure, premature old age and early death.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
O good old man, how well in thee appears The constant service of the antique world,... When service sweat for duty, not for meed!LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Thus is Paradise to be Regained, and that old and stern decree at length reversed. Man shall no more earn his living by the sweat ...of his brow. All labor shall be reduced to "a short turn of some crank," and "taking the finished articles away." But there is a crank,--oh, how hard to be turned! Could there not be a crank upon a crank,--an infinitely small crank? Mwe would fain inquire. No,--alas! not.... In fact, no work can be shirked. It may be postponed indefinitely, but not infinitely. Nor can any really important work be made easier by coöperation or machinery. Not one particle of labor now threatening any man can be routed without being performed. It cannot be hunted out of the vicinity like jackals and hyenas. It will not run. You may begin by sawing the little sticks, or you may saw the great sticks first, but sooner or later you must saw them both.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
What is it to grow old? Is it to lose the glory of the form,... The luster of the eye? Is it for beauty to forego her wreath? MYes, but not this alone.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
People who begin sentences with "I may be old-fashioned but--" are usually not only old-fashioned but wrong. I never thought the t...ime would come when I should catch myself leading off with that crack. But I feel it coming on right now.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
It so happened that, a few weeks later, "Old Ernie" [Ernest Hemingway] himself was using my room in New York as a hide-out from li...terary columnists and reporters during one of his rare stopover visits between Africa and Key West. On such all-too-rare occasions he lends an air of virility to my dainty apartment which I miss sorely after he has gone and all the furniture has been repaired.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The women there do all they ought; The men observe the Rules of Thought;... They love the Good; they worship Truth; They laugh uproariously in youth; (And when they get to feeling old, They up and shoot themselves, I'm told). . .LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Poor old Jonathan Bing Went home and addressed a short note to the King:... If you please will excuse me I won't come to tea; For home's the best place for All people like me!LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »