Ученик философа

Non ragioniam di lor, ma guarda e passa. What a dreadful thing to say, how cruel Dante was and yet he was granted a vision of paradise. Pretty boring place, actually.

‘Strong probabilities amount to proof.’
‘Perhaps they do in philosophy, but I prefer to believe what I see clearly.’

Tom was experiencing for the first time in his life (and no doubt he was lucky to have escaped it so long) that blackening and poisoning of the imagination which is one of the worst, as well as one of the commonest, forms of human misery.

Isn’t that worth thinking about?’
‘You are not thinking,’ said John Robert. ‘You are simply suffering from a nervous craving of the will.

‘You said it’s not philosophy unless it makes you tremble. You are an incurable teacher. I am trembling now. Teach me.’
‘Why do you go on worrying about philosophy? It doesn’t matter.’

Kant cared about his pupils. Not like Schlick. Kant looked after his pupils years later — ’
‘You know nothing about Schlick.’
‘You destroyed my belief in good and evil, you were Mephistopheles to my Faust.’
‘You flatter yourself.’

He had lived for so long among the problems with which the greatest minds of the past had fumbled like children. He had contemplated, almost indeed become, the images of the great metaphysicians, spawning his own imagery with a foaming spontaneity worthy of any madhouse.

Who could fathom Plato’s mind? Unless one is a genius, philosophy is a mug’s game.

Now every morning as he assumed the burden of consciousness he reflected upon its strangeness: the mystery of mind, so general and so particular. Why do thoughts not lose their owners? How does the individual stay together and not stray away like racing water-drops? How does consciousness continue, how can it? Could the curse of memory not end, and why did it not end?

George had kept the tally against fate. He knew what he was owed: something great, little less than salvation.

George, more than most people, lived by an idea of himself which was in some ways significantly at odds with reality. To say he was a narcissist was to say little. We are mostly narcissists, and only in a few, not always with felicitous results, is narcissism overcome (broken, crushed, annihilated, nothing less will serve) by religious discipline or psycho-analysis.

God bless women, they never write a man off. Men judge, women don’t. What would we do without them? That women’s world of quietness and forgiveness to which we return battle-scarred. You soothe and animate our images of ourselves.’

Diane had been beautiful when she was young, and had experienced the claims upon the world which beautiful women feel, especially if they are poor.

Is that a metaphor?’
‘Almost everything we say is a metaphor, that’s why nothing is really serious.’

Brian found the Good Life difficult for simple but deep reasons. He was selfish.

Brian pictured himself as austere and pure in heart. He wanted to live the Good Life with his wife and his son, but he found this difficult.

Gabriel said, ‘Everyone speaks ill of him.’
‘They like a scapegoat, to have someone at hand who is officially more sinful than they are.’

I am the narrator: a discreet and self-effacing narrator. This book is not about me.

— Я никак не пойму, зачем Адаму такая малюсенькая хорошенькая собачка, — сказала Алекс. — Мальчикам обычно нравятся большие собаки.
— Мы тоже не поймем, — ответил Брайан, чувствуя, что Габриель обиделась и теперь будет молчать. Габриель знала, что Брайан это почувствовал, и стала придумывать, что бы такое сказать. Алекс поняла обоих и пожалела о своем замечании, но была раздосадована, что они оба так нелепо чувствительны.

У Алекс было богатое прошлое и живое, интересное, опасное будущее.