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I always take it for granted that sexual moralizing by public figures is a sign of hypocrisy or worse, and most usually a desire to perform the very act that is most being condemned.

Death has this much to be said for it:

You don’t have to get out of bed for it.

Wherever you happen to be

They bring it to you – free.

The conventional word that is employed to describe tyranny is “systematic.” The true essence of a dictatorship is in fact not its regularity but its unpredictability and caprice; those who live under it must never be able to relax, must never be quite sure if they have followed the rules correctly or not. (The only rule of thumb was: whatever is not compulsory is forbidden.) Thus, the ruled can always be found to be in the wrong.

Nothing reminds one of impending extinction more than the growth of one’s children, for whom room must be made, and who are in fact one’s only hint of even a tincture of a hope of immortality.

“The one unforgivable sin,” she used to say, “is to be boring.”

An adolescent act of defiance has now become a familiar form of virtue. 'Going with the flow' has become an imperative, a clear version of the good life. Change is sentimentally evoked in popular fictions. We 'change' to move on from tragedy or difficulty, we 'change' to overcome trauma, we are frequently told to accept 'change' as some perennial fact of life, the contemplation of which brings wisdom. Virtuous change is the ethic of the soap opera and the ne plus ultra of the advice column.

A day

Spent in a round of strenuous idleness.

Oh there is blessing in this gentle breeze,

A visitant that while it fans my cheek

Doth seem half-conscious of the joy it brings

From the green fields, and from yon azure sky.

Whate'er its mission, the soft breeze can come

To none more grateful than to me; escaped

From the vast city, where I long had pined

A discontented sojourner: now free,

Free as a bird to settle where I will.

The earth is all before me. With a heart

Joyous, nor scared at its own liberty,

I look about; and should the chosen guide

Be nothing better than a wandering cloud,

I cannot miss my way.

Whether we be young or old,

Our destiny, our being's heart and home,

Is with infinitude, and only there;

With hope it is, hope that can never die,

Effort and expectation, and desire,

And something evermore about to be.

Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,

But to be young was very heaven!

Fair seedtime had my soul, and I grew up

Fostered alike by beauty and by fear.