Quote by Jacques Ellul

“By action people hope to achieve enjoyment, to feel that they are alive and young and vigorous at an elemental level. Games, sport, sex, creative work, the intense pleasure of speed - a hundred other forms of action, but all fleeting and momentary. Action here and now is a transitory thing that can have only two results. Either we go back and reflect on what we have done, and it is all dust and ashes; or else we keep on doing it, day after day heaping up sensuous pleasures, ecstasies, and delights. In the former case we have an Epicurean restraint that demands great discipline and can be achieved only by the word. In the latter case we are in a headlong flight like Don Juan, Mille e tre, with a round of conquests, each testifying that it is already over, and that there must be a search for new pastures with increasing dissatisfaction. Action uses up action, and it uses us up even more swiftly until the point is reached where there is only the sad recollection of what was once action but has now become impossible.”