Socrates said, our only knowledge was “To know that nothing could be known;” a pleasant Science enough, which levels to an ass Each Man of Wisdom, future, past, or present.
The leaves along the limpid streams of Eden? Is your course measur’d for ye? Or do ye Sweep on in your unbounded revelry Through an aerial universe of endless Expansion,–at which my soul aches to think,– Intoxicated with eternity.
I live, but live to die: and, living, see nothing to make death hateful, save an innate clinging, a loathsome and yet all invincible instinct of life, which I abhor, as I despise myself, yet cannot overcome – and so I live. Would I had never lived!
I have simplified my politics into an utter detestation of all existing governments; and, as it is the shortest and most agreeable and summary feeling imaginable.
The fact is, riches are power, and poverty is slavery all over the earth, and one sort of establishment is no better, nor worse, for a people than another.
