adventure: to feel alive

 

   the why and wherefore
Could life be anything but sweet
when all is hazardous and new?

Nevil Shute quoting E.F.A. Geach, Slide rule (1954)

adventure

   not the danger
I don't understand them anymore, these people that travel the commuter-trains to their dormitory towns. These people call themselves human, but, by a pressure they do not feel, are forced to do their work like ants. With what do they fill their time when they are free of work on their silly little Sundays?
I am very fortunate in my profession. I feel like a farmer, with the airstrips as my fields. Those that have once tasted this kind of fare will not forget it, ever. Not so, my friends? It is not a question of living dangerously. That formula is too arrogant, too presumptuous. I don't care much for bull-fighters. It's not the danger I love. I know what I love. It is life itself.

Antoine de saint-Exupéry, Terre des hommes (Wind, sand and stars) (1939)

adventure

   love

'Love,' we call it - a pretty name - but the force is the urge of Life itself, as abstract, as ruthless, as unsentimental, as inexorable as Death, which is its counterpart. And now, with Death so eager, should not Life be eager too?

Cecil Lewis, Sagittarius rising (1936)

adventure

   adventure
Why does one want to walk wings? Why should man want to fly at all? People often ask those questions. But what civilization was not founded on adventure, and how long could one exist without it?
What justifies the risk of life? Some answer, the attainment of knowledge. Some say wealth, or power, is sufficient cause.
I believe the risks I take are justified by the sheer love of the life I lead. Yes, just being in the air on a flight across the ocean (to Paris) warrants the hazard of an ice field below.

Charles Lindbergh, the Spirit of st. Louis (1953)

adventure


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