by George Norman Douglas (1868 - 1952)
Consider well your neighbour, what an...
Language: English
Consider well your neighbour, what an imbecile he is. Then ask yourself whether it be worth while paying any attention to what he thinks of you. Life is too short, and death the end of all things. Life must be lived, not endured. ... Therefore the sage will go his way, prepared to find himself growing ever more out of sympathy with vulgar trends of opinion, for such is the inevitable development of thoughtful and self-respecting minds. He scorns to make proselytes among his fellows: they are not worth it. He has better things to do. While others nurse their griefs, he nurses his joy. He endeavours to find himself at no matter what cost, and to be true to that self when found — a worthy and ample occupation for a life-time.
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View text with all available footnotesConfirmed with Norman Douglas, Alone, excerpts, New York, Robert M. McBride & Company, 1922, pages 136-137.
Note: these are prose selections. The line breaks are arbitrary.
1 omitted by Hinton.Authorship:
- by George Norman Douglas (1868 - 1952), no title, appears in Alone, New York, Robert M. McBride & Company, first published 1922 [author's text checked 1 time against a primary source]
Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):
- by Alistair Hinton (b. 1950), "Consider well your neighbour, what an imbecile he is", op. 13 no. 5i (1969-1977) [ high voice and string quintet ], from String Quintet, no. 5i [ sung text checked 1 time]
Researcher for this page: Poom Andrew Pipatjarasgit [Guest Editor]
This text was added to the website: 2018-09-09
Line count: 15
Word count: 133