The art of living happy is, I believe, the art of being agreeably deluded; and faith in all things is superior to Reason, which, after all, is but a dead weight in advanced life, though as the pendulum to the clock in youth.Humphrey Davy (1828), quoted in The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science, Richard Holmes (2009)
For a scientist, as Davy was, to express such sentiments is a bit surprising. However, I'm not quite at the stage of "advanced life" Davy was when he wrote this, so for all I know I might be ready to embrace some degree of delusion in my later years.
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