words to inspire before you expire

Tag: Reason

” . . . [my boss] asked me if I wasn’t interested in a change of life. I said that people never change their lives, that in any case one life was as good as another and that I wasn’t dissatisfied with mine here at all. He looked upset and told me that I never gave him a straight answer, that I had no ambition, and that that was disastrous in business. So I went back to work. I would rather not have upset him, but I couldn’t see any reason to change my life. Looking back on it, I wasn’t unhappy. When I was a student, I had lots of ambitions like that. But when I had to give up my studies I learned very quickly that none of it really mattered.”

—from The Stranger by Albert Camus

“‘Are there ghosts, Piggy? Or beasts?’

‘Course there aren’t.’

‘Why not?’

”Cos things wouldn’t make sense. Houses an’ streets, an’ TV—they wouldn’t work.’

. . .

‘But s’pose they don’t make sense? Not here, on this island? Supposing things are watching us and waiting?'”

—from Lord of the Flies by William Golding

“Oh, what ridiculous resolutions men take when possessed with fear! It deprives them of the use of those means which reason offers for their relief.”

—from Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe