The sense in which Goethe was right: Continued life means e… - Saul Bellow

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The sense in which Goethe was right: Continued life means expectation, Death is the abolition of choice. The more choice is limited, the closer we are to death. The greatest cruelty is to curtail expectations without taking away life completely. A life term in prison is like that. So is citizenship in some countries. The best solution would be to live as if the ordinary expectations had not been removed, not from day to day, blindly. But that requires immense self-mastery.

Saul Bellow

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About Saul Bellow

Saul Bellow (10 June 1915 – 5 April 2005) was a Canadian-born American writer. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1976 and the National Medal of Arts in 1988.

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Birth Name: Solomon Bellows

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Aldous Huxley Norman Mailer E. M. Forster Robertson Davies Anton Chekhov

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Society is what beats me. Alone I can be pretty good, but let me go among people and there’s the devil to pay.

I may well be a flop at this line of endeavor. Columbus too thought he was a flop, probably, when they sent him back in chains. Which didn't prove there was no America.

What art thou?' Nothing. That's the answer. Nothing. In the heart of hearts- Nothing! So of course you can't stand that and want to be Something, and you try. But instead of being this Something, the man puts it over on everybody instead.

The sense in which Goethe was right: Continued life means expectation, Death is the abolition of choice. The more choice is limited, the closer we ar… - Saul Bellow

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