Of All The Idiots I Have Met

What Is Life When You Come To Think Upon It, But A Most Excellent, Accurately Set, Infinitely Complicated Machine For Turning Fat Playful Puppies Into Old Mangy Blind Dogs, And Proud War Horses Into Skinny Nags, And Succulent Young Boys, To Whom The World Holds Great Delights And Terrors, Into Old Weak Men, With Running Eyes, Who Drink Ground Rhino-horn?

It's An Odd Feeling-farewell-there Is Some Envy In It. Men Go Off To Be Tested For Courage And If We're Tested At All, It's For Patience, For Doing Without, For How Well We Can Endure Loneliness.

Some Travelers Are Drawn Forward By A Goal Lying Before Them In The Way Iron Is Drawn To The Magnet. Others Are Driven On By A Force Lying Behind Them. In Such A Way The Bowstring Makes The Arrow Fly.

The Pleasure Of The True Dreamer Does Not Lie In The Substance Of The Dream, But In This: That There Things Happen Without Any Interference From His Side, And Altogether Outside His Control.

Love, With Very Young People, Is A Heartless Business. We Drink At That Age From Thirst, Or To Get Drunk; It Is Only Later In Life That We Occupy Ourselves With The Individuality Of Our Wine.