Quote#Self
The individual aspiration is always defeated of its perfect fruition…
Quote byDon Marquis · 1878–1937
Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: The Almost Perfect State (1921).
English (original)
The individual aspiration is always defeated of its perfect fruition and expression, but it is never lost; it passes into the conglomerate being of the race. The way to encourage yourself about the human race is to look at it first from a distance; look at the lights on the high spots.
— Don Marquis
More from Don Marquis
we are after a system that scarcely knows it is a system; the great thing is to have the largest number of individuals as happy as may be, for a little while at least, some time before they die.
Growing and learning and obeying the rules of their elders, or fighting against them, are not easy things to do.
If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; but if you really make them think, they'll hate you.
No matter how nearly perfect an Almost Perfect State may be, it is not nearly enough perfect unless the individuals who compose it can, somewhere between death and birth, have a perfectly corking time for a few years.
Infancy is not what it is cracked up to be.
Of middle age the best that can be said is that a middle aged person has likely learned how to have a little fun in spite of his troubles.