" THE LIFE THEORETIC W hile I have been fumbling over books And thinking about God and the Devil and all, Other young men have been battling with the days And others have been kissing the beautiful women. They have brazen faces like battering-rams. But I who think about books and such— I crumble to impotent dust before the struggling, And the women palsy me with fear. But when it comes to fumbling over books And thinking about God and the Devil and all, Why, there I am. But perhaps the battering-rams are in the right of it, Perhaps, perhaps ... God knows. "

― Aldous Huxley , The Defeat of Youth and Other Poems