Norman Douglas

“The longer one lives, the more one realizes that nothing is a dish for every day.”

“They who are all things to their neighbors cease to be anything to themselves.”

“Shall I give you my recipe for happiness? I find everything useful and nothing indispensable. I find everything wonderful and nothing miraculous. I reverence the body. I avoid first causes like the plague.”

“Bouillabaisse is only good because cooked by the French, who, if they cared to try, could produce an excellent and nutritious substitute out of cigar stumps and empty matchboxes.”

“The pine stays green in winter... wisdom in hardship.”

“You can tell the ideals of a nation by its advertising.”

“The sublimity of wisdom is to do those things living, which are to be desired when dying.”

“The land is encrusted with ephemeral human conceits. That is not altogether good for a youngster; it disarranges his mind and puts him out of harmony with what is permanent. Just listen a moment. Here, if you are wise, you will seek an antidote. Taken in over-dose, all these churches and pictures and books and other products of our species are toxins for a boy like you. They falsify your cosmic values. Try to be more of an animal. Try to extract pleasure from more obvious sources. Lie fallow for a while. Forget all these things. Go out into the midday glare. Sit among rocks and by the sea. Have a look at the sun and stars for a change; they arc just as impressive as Donatello. Find yourself! You know the Cave of Mercury? Climb down, one night of full moon, all alone, and rest at its entrance. Familiarize yourself with elemental things. The whole earth reeks of humanity and its works. One has to be old and tough to appraise them at their true worth. Tell people to go to Hell, Denis, with their altar-pieces and museums and clock- towers and funny little art-galleries.”

“To find a friend one must close one eye - to keep him, two.”

“There is in us a lyric germ or nucleus which deserves respect; it bids a man to ponder or create; and in this dim corner of himself he can take refuge and find consolations which the society of his fellow creatures does not provide.”

“Many a man who thinks to found a home discovers that he has merely opened a tavern for his friends.”

“Education is a state-controlled manufactory of echoes.”

“A man can believe a considerable deal of rubbish, and yet go about his daily work in a rational and cheerful manner.”

“Distrust of authority should be the first civic duty.”

“What is all wisdom save a collection of platitudes?”

“Never take a solemn oath. People think you mean it.”

“You can construct the character of a man and his age not only from what he does and says, but from what he fails to say and do.”

“It takes a wise man to handle a lie, a fool had better remain honest.”

“If you want to see what children can do, you must stop giving them things.”