One Man Quotes (page 23)
One can never really give a proof of the reality of anything; reality is not something open to proof, it is something established. It is established just because proof is not enough. It is this characteristic of language, at once indispensable and inadequate, which shows the reality of the external world. Most people hardly ever realize this, because it is rare that the very same man thinks and puts his thought into action.
Simone Weil
One minute. You know nothing about him. He probably has his own joys and interests- wife, children, snug little home. That's where we practical fellows'- he smiled-'are more tolerant than you intellectuals. We live and let live, and assume that things are jogging on fairly well elsewhere, and that the ordinary plain man may be trusted to look after his own affairs.
E. M. Forster
One day I wrote her name upon the strand, But came the waves and washd it away: Again I wrote it with a second hand, But came the tide and made my pains his prey. Vain man (said she) that dost in vain assay. A mortal thing so to immortalise; For I myself shall like to this decay, And eke my name be wipd out likewise. Not so (quod I); let baser things devise. To die in dust, but you shall live by fame; My verse your virtues rare shall eternise, And in the heavens write your glorious name:...
Edmund Spenser