The Once and Future King

The best thing for being sad, replied Merlin, beginning to puff and blow, "is to learn something That's the only thing that never fails You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins you may miss your only love you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds There is only one thing for it then [Chorus] learn Learn Learn why the world wags, and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. Learning is the only thing for you. Look what a lot of things there are to learn. pure science, the only purity there is. You can learn astronomy in a lifetime, natural history in three, literature in six. And then, after you have exhausted a milliard lifetimes in biology and medicine and theo-criticism and geography and history and economics why, you can start to make a cartwheel out of the appropriate wood, or spend fifty years learning to begin to learn to beat your adversary at fencing. After that you can start again on mathematics until then, its time to learn to plough You can learn mathematics in a lifetime, Natural Chemistry in three, physics in six. And then, after you have exhausted a million lifetimes in language. and music. and philosophy. and theology. and geology. and economics. That's the only thing that never fails. [Chorus] learn Learn Learn why the world wags, and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. Learning is the only thing for you. why, you can start to make a cartwheel out of the appropriate wood, or spend fifty years learning to begin to learn to beat your adversary at jujitsu. After that you can start again on mathematics until then, its time to learn to plough