It is better to be a human
being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates
dissatisfied than a fool satisfied.
...
Capacity for the nobler feelings is in most natures a very tender plant,
easily killed, not only by hostile influences, but by mere want of sustenance;
and in the majority of young persons it speedily dies away if the occupations
to which their position in life has devoted them, and the society into which it
has thrown them, are not favourable to keeping that higher capacity in
exercise. Men lose their high aspirations as they lose their intellectual
tastes, because they have not time or opportunity for indulging them; and they
addict themselves to inferior pleasures, not because they deliberately prefer
them, but because they are either the only ones to which they have access, or
the only ones which they are any longer capable of enjoying.
- from Utilitarianism, 1863
No comments:
Post a Comment