Man Quotes (page 471)
A wise man once said that all human activity is a form of play. And the highest form of play is the search for Truth, Beauty and Love. What more is needed? Should there be a ‘meaning’ as well, that will be a bonus? If we waste time looking for life’s meaning, we may have no time to live — or to play.
Arthur C. Clarke
Oh, say, how call ye this, To face, and smile, the comrade whom his kiss. Betrayed? Scorn? Insult? Courage? None of these:'Tis but of all man's inward sicknesses. The vilest, that he knoweth not of shame. Nor pity! Yet I praise him that he came . . . To me it shall bring comfort, once to clear. My heart on thee, and thou shalt wince to hear.
Euripides
What a wonderfully exciting cough,' said the little man, quite startled by it, 'do you mind if I join you?' And with that he launched into the most extraordinary and spectacular fit of coughing which caught Arthur so much by surprise that he started to choke violently, discovered he was already doing it and got thoroughly confused.
Douglas Adams
The heaviest of burdens crushes us, we sink beneath it, it pins us to the ground. But in the love poetry of every age, the woman longs to be weighed down by the man's body. The heaviest if burdens is therefore simultaneously an image of life's most intense fulfillment. The heavier the burden, the closer our lives come to the earth, the more real and truthful they become.
Milan Kundera
Pick an apocalypse, any apocalypse. A sea of black oil and dead things. No wind. No light. Nothing stirring, not even an ant, a spider. A silent universe. Such is the end of the flicker of time, the brief hot fuse of events and ideas set off, accidentally, and snuffed out, accidentally, by man. Not a real ending of course, nor even a beginning. Mere ripple in Time's stream.
John Gardner