Do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame.
Alexander PopeRead
Thus let me live, unseen, unknown, Thus unlamented let me die, Steal from the world, and not a stone Tell where I lie.
Interpretation
The quote expresses a desire for anonymity in life and death, seeking to avoid the burdens of recognition and lamentation.
In this quote, Alexander Pope reflects on the notion of living and dying in obscurity, desiring to leave no mark or memory behind that could evoke sorrow or remembrance. It suggests a philosophical stance towards existence, where the individual values privacy and the absence of burden to others, highlighting a desire for simplicity in both life and death.
In practice
During a eulogy, one might reference this quote to express the deceased's wishes for a simple life.
Do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame.
What dire offence from am'rous causes springs, What mighty contests rise from trivial things.
Fair tresses man's imperial race ensnare; And beauty draws us with a single hair.
An honest man's the noblest work of God.
One thought of thee puts all the pomp to flight;_x000D_ _x000D_ Priests, tapers, temples, swim before my sight.
Who breaks a butterfly on a wheel?
Only what we have wrought into our character during life can we take with us.
The most sublime truth of all has never been stated or written or sung. Not because it is far away and can not be reached, but because it is so intimately close, closer than anything that can be spoken. It is alive as the stillness in the core of your being, too close to be described, too close to be objectified, too close to be known in the usual way of knowledge. The truth of who you are is yours already. It is already present.
That God cannot lie, is no advantage to your argument, because it is no proof that priests can not, or that the Bible does not.
And as this is the obvious appearance of things, it must be admitted, till some hypothesis be discovered, which by penetrating deeper into human nature, may prove the former affections to be nothing but modifications of the latter. All attempts of this kind have hitherto proved fruitless, and seem to have proceeded entirely from that love of simplicity which has been the source of much false reasoning in philosophy.
Because war and preparations for war have acquired legitimacy, and because of the tremendous proliferation of arms through production and export, so that they are now available more or less to all and sundry, right down to handguns and stilettos, the cult of violence has by now so permeated relations between people that we are compelled to witness as well an increase in everyday violence.
It's been months since I last wrote. I've lived in a state of mental slumber, leading the life of someone else. I've felt, very often, a vicarious happiness. I haven't existed. I've been someone else. I've lived without thinking.
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