Posted on 11 Aug, 2011 -
The wisdom of Marilyn Monroe and Jean-Paul Sartre
As I’ll be on holiday when you read this, I’ve lined up a few of my favourite authors and people to take over from me instead…
Some of the best quotes about life ever!
Plus: an interesting thought on the necessity of an eternal state of tiredness…
Dear Reader,
When you read this email I will (hopefully - kids all being well) be on holiday - staying in a rural chalet in the Pyrenees. The plan is that the kids will be inspired by nature… in awe of the mountains and running around the open countryside.
Not that you can really shape your kids how you want them. Sure you have an influence. But they also end up being themselves.
As a teenager from rural Britain I was in awe of anything French, all things to do with Cities and the intellectual side of life. I was especially in love with the French philosopher and City-liver Jean-Paul Sartre.
One of my favourite (and more understandable) quotes from him is this one:
”Everything has been figured out, except how to live.”
Out of this very quote, perhaps, was born my belief that you can’t just trudge on blindly from day to day. You’ve got to keep on making an effort to live better, worry less, and love more. You’ve got to keep on trying to figure out how to live.
But then all my favourite quotes, you’ll be glad to know, are not so serious!
In fact, my next two favourites come from the beautiful Marilyn Monroe who was also a teenage hero. Her life may not have been a particularly happy or contented one. But then I also think life needs to have other elements in it as well. As Charles de Gaulle said when asked whether he was happy: “What do you take me for, an idiot?”
So here are the slightly tragic and beautiful ones from Marilyn:
”I am invariably late for appointments - sometimes as much as two hours. I’ve tried to change my ways but the things that make me late are too strong, and too pleasing.”
”I am not interested in money. I just want to be wonderful.”
Another bit of snappy life wisdom from a silver screen beauty is this one from Marlene Dietrich:
”A man would prefer to come home to an unmade bed and a happy woman than to a neatly made bed and an angry woman.”
Moving from movie stars to politicians…
And now, back to a bit of serious and positive common sense from Henry A. Kissinger:
”Accept everything about yourself - I mean everything, you are you and that is the beginning and the end - no apologies, no regrets.”
A couple from Winston Churchill:
”You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.”
“If you’re going through hell, keep going.”
... A bit of a pep talk from Charles Darwin:
”A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life.”
And one that will get you sitting up straight, standing up for yourself and taking pride in who you are from Martin Luther King, Jr:
”A man can’t ride your back unless it’s bent.”
And who better than a bunch of writers to get in next
And finally, these last three are not so much about good advise - as about a searing truth…
”Any idiot can face a crisis - it’s day to day living that wears you out.”
Anton Chekhov
”People living deeply have no fear of death.”
Anais Nin
”If you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.”
Friedrich Nietzsche
In fact, that one from Chekhov has just reminded me of a passage about tiredness I was reading the other day from a book called ‘101 Experiments in the Philosophy of Everyday Life’ by French philosopher.
The book was a hit across Europe a few years ago but I’ve never been able to get on with it. I do like this bit though:
”Life and tiredness are inseparable. It is useless to dream of a pure, blissful rest, which effaces both effort and tension. Life is constantly preyed to the depletion of energy, to lassitude and to real or imagined aches and pains. To persevere brings on fatigue, if by that one means the result of effort, not of depression.”
He also adds that there are so many different kinds of tiredness too.
I wonder what kind of tiredness will be hitting you? Me, I’m hoping for the tiredness of walking up a mountain. What I’ll probably get is the tiredness of the kids having argued in the back of the car since we set out this morning. But such is life!
Best wishes
