34 things from this book went into her brain. Here are the first 6.
Arnold Bennett argues that many people confuse happiness with distraction, and so chase excitement that leaves them hollow. Happiness is a different thing from pleasure.
In Running Away from Life, Arnold Bennett shows a woman who makes peace with what she cannot control, and finds her pleasure in literature and in cheerful, dutiful living.
Arnold Bennett suggests that the restless and the content may both be running away from life itself, and that refusing to listen to the voice within costs everyone equally.
Arnold Bennett holds that the supreme offence against life is taking refuge from it, whether in good works or bad, because only full engagement with life brings real happiness.
In Running Away from Life, Arnold Bennett sets out the price of following an instinct, such as a gift for writing, against a safe and respected path, and asks us to weigh that price honestly.
In Running Away from Life, Arnold Bennett shows a dutiful man who succeeds in every outward way, yet carries a poisonous regret because he never followed the path his own instinct pointed to.
Arnold Bennett defines happiness as satisfaction after full, honest effort. Someone who has failed to take up life's challenge in a major affair cannot truly be happy, however respectable they are.
Arnold Bennett says an ordinary unhappiness is easier to bear than the inner verdict of having run away from a call to act. Avoiding a task leaves its own lasting sting.
Arnold Bennett points out that good work seldom comes knocking at the door, so those who want to contribute must go and find it, and that searching for the work is part of the work.
Arnold Bennett warns that the work we actually find is rarely the ideal we pictured. Accepting dull, unsuitable work without complaint is part of doing any real service.
Arnold Bennett notes that everyone fills every hour, so taking on something new means something must go. Giving up idle sociability is harder than giving up study, and we should expect that.
Arnold Bennett insists that real service requires sacrifice, since it cannot be fitted around everything else. As he puts it, a full cup must be emptied before anything more can go in.
Arnold Bennett suggests that an impossible colleague is still part of the work. A good worker who quits in disgust leaves the table to the very people they objected to.
Arnold Bennett says the most valuable service is often working with difficult people, and warns that becoming official-minded is the gravest danger for anyone who rises to a position of authority.
Arnold Bennett says the reward for service comes slowly, and that proving our decency lies in sticking to the work long after we are weary of it, rather than chasing something more pleasant.
Arnold Bennett argues that writing down something we are ashamed of, honestly and in black and white, shows how much we fear our own truth. Most of us find an excuse not to.
Arnold Bennett describes how hard it is to be fully honest even on a private page. Most of us soften the truth without noticing, and then feel relief when the page burns.
Arnold Bennett warns that a diary is rarely fully true, since two honest people recounting the same quarrel will each leave something out. Truth is the hardest thing on earth to attain.
Arnold Bennett argues that a life is worth recording when it interests the person living it. He notes that Pepys wrote mostly of ordinary daily happenings, and that these became the great book.
Arnold Bennett holds that the only good reason to keep a diary is the pleasure of writing it. The act should be its own reward, and posterity should not be the motive.
Arnold Bennett advises that a diary should be written as we think and speak. Worrying about literary style gets in the way of plain, honest writing, and writing well comes from clear thinking.
Arnold Bennett says a good diary still takes effort: honest recall, care not to leave out the interesting part, and resisting the temptation to be slack and casual. Negligence cannot be repaired afterwards.
Arnold Bennett argues that real desire is definite and concrete, the sort that keeps working on us. A vague wish taken up only in idle moments is a pastime, not a sign of energy.
In Running Away from Life, Arnold Bennett suggests that a man with many interests, who never became lopsided, may have succeeded more than the friends who called him a waster.
Arnold Bennett suggests that a world of people all ruthlessly set on succeeding would be a grim place. He also says we should question our conscience fairly, not only in the dark hour before dawn.
Arnold Bennett notes that envy of the successful, wanting their rewards without their costs, is not the same as a genuine drive to get on in life.
Arnold Bennett describes a person who has talked themselves into needing one particular thing to function. The need grew from habit and imagination, and it had no real power beyond what they gave it.
Arnold Bennett describes the complete fusser, who gives fatal importance to ten thousand small things and so loses the ease of living. Most people carry a little of this microbe.
Arnold Bennett suggests that most of what we fuss over matters only slightly. Fussing about trifles is a delusion that the world may end over a small provocation, and changing a few of our habits would help.
Arnold Bennett warns that the instinct to fuss grows steadily unless it is firmly checked, and that pride pushes it from one small obsession on to the next.
Arnold Bennett observes that the complete fusser cannot be cured, mostly because he does not know he is fussy. The useful warning is to pull up early, before the habit hardens.
Arnold Bennett says fussiness can be cured in its early stages, when we suspect our own quirks, if we act at once and choke the 'but' that excuses them.
Arnold Bennett suggests that human motives are usually mixed, and that because they are so human they are forgivable. Our choices often serve several desires at once, from the wish to attract to the sense of beauty.
Arnold Bennett argues that common sense is relative, and that human progress is too complex for a slogan. We should be slow to scorn the habits of the past, or to assume our own sense is final.
