When I speak of 'cycles ' I am referring to lengthy intervals of relative homogeneity if not in the resolving of problems than at least with respect to the consistency of their capacity to productively irritate.

The first recipe for happiness is: avoid too lengthy meditation on the past.

Whatever universe a professor believes in must at any rate be a universe that lends itself to lengthy discourse. A universe definable in two sentences is something for which the professorial intellect has no use. No faith in anything of that cheap kind!

But when you're deprived of it for a lengthy period then you value human companionship. But you have to survive and so you devise all kinds of mental exercises and it's amazing.