Malcom Muggerridge.

When I look back on my life nowdays,with I sometimes do,
what strikes me most forcibly about it is that
what seemed at the time significant and seductive,
seems now most futile and absurb.

For instance ,success in all its various guises;
being known and being praised;ostensible pleasure,
like acquiring money or seducing women,

or traveling,going to and fro in the world and up
down in it like satan,explaining and experiencing
whatever Vanity Fair has offer.

In retrospect,all these exercises in self-gratification
seem like pure fantasy,what Pascal called,

" licking the earth " 7