Thursday, July 2, 2009

Cause or Effect

"If once a man indulges himself in murder, very soon he comes to think little of robbing; and from robbing he next comes to drinking and Sabbath-breaking, and from that to incivility and procrastination."

-Thomas de Quincey

5 comments:

  1. This is backwards and I'm too dense to see why he wrote it that way.

    At least I can say I skipped over the murder and robbery bits...

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  2. Doug, it’s from a piece he wrote called ‘On Murder Considered as one of the Fine Arts’. And yes, it is supposed to be dark humour. To quote Wikipedia:

    The essay is a fictional, satirical account of an address made to a gentleman's club concerning the aesthetic appreciation of murder.

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  3. Simon, You're the greatest! I found it wonderfully droll.

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  4. It's the damned truth, is all I know. Seen it time and time again.

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