A Quote by James Boswell
Drinking is in reality an occupation which employs a considerable portion of the time of many people; and to conduct it in the most rational and agreeable manner is one of the great arts of living.
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If one has to earn a living, therefore, the safest occupation is that most remote from the arts.
There is a long history in country music of songs celebrating drinking and lamenting drinking. Country songs for the most part have always been heavily rooted in reality. The first artists were the people next door. They would sing on their porch or in their living room or at a barn dance. They sang about what they knew, and a lot of that was drinking.
A man can believe a considerable deal of rubbish, and yet go about his daily work in a rational and cheerful manner.
The fear of death which is imprinted in men is at the same time a great expedient Heaven employs to hinder them from many misdeeds: many things are left undone for fear of imperiling one's life or health.
An agreeable figure and winning manner, which inspire affection without love, are always new. Beauty loses its relish, the graces never, after the longest acquaintance, they are no less agreeable than at first.
All the analysis of infinite reality which the finite human mind can conduct rests on the tacit assumption that only a finite portion of this reality constitutes the object of scientific investigation, and that only it is 'important' in the sense of being 'worthy of being known.'
All the analysis of infinite reality which the finite human mind can conduct rests on the tacit assumption that only a finite portion of this reality constitutes the object of scientific investigation, and that only it is 'important' in the sense of being 'worthy of being known.
History does not record anywhere at any time a religion that has any rational basis. Religion is a crutch for people not strong enough to stand up to the unknown without help. But, like dandruff, most people do have a religion and spend time and money on it and seem to derive considerable pleasure from fiddling with it.
Words, as is well known, are the great foes of reality. I have been for many years a teacher of languages. It is an occupation which at length becomes fatal to whatever share of imagination, observation, and insight an ordinary person may be heir to. To a teacher of languages there comes a time when the world is but a place of many words and man appears a mere talking animal not much more wonderful than a parrot.
No other technique for the conduct of life attaches the individual so firmly to reality as laying emphasis on work; for his work at least gives him a secure place in a portion of reality, in the human community.
The town of GUILDFORD, which (taken with its environs) I, who have seen so many, many towns, think the prettiest, and, taken all together, the most agreeable and most happy-looking, that I ever saw in my life.
To have the management of the mind is a great art, and it may be attained in a considerable degree by experience and habitual exercise... Let him take a course of chemistry, or a course of rope-dance, or a course of any thing to which he is inclined at the time. Let him contrive to have as many retreats for his mind as he can, as many things to which it can fly from itself.
Science which is acquired unwillingly, soon disappears; that which is instilled into the mind in a pleasant and agreeable manner, is more lasting.
Fantasy is not antirational, but pararational; not realistic but surrealistic, a heightening of reality. In Freud's terminology, it employs primary not secondary process thinking. It employs archetypes which, as Jung warned us, are dangerous things. Fantasy is nearer to poetry, to mysticism, and to insanity than naturalistic fiction is. It is a wilderness, and those who go there should not feel too safe.
Religion, in its most general view, is such a Sense of God in the soul, and such a conviction of our obligations to him, and of our dependence upon him, as shall engage us to make it our great care to conduct ourselves in a manner which we have reason to believe will be pleasing to him.
In terms of the idea of long-term occupation - I have been reading a little bit more about this period - and you can see in that occupation are many lessons for the current occupation of Iraq. So we have these connections that go way back that people aren't aware of.
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