Over the past few weeks, I’ve encountered a familiar phrase: “Living well is the best revenge.” More than once, my friends and I have invoked this saying to signify our …
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Over the past few weeks, I’ve encountered a familiar phrase: “Living well is the best revenge.” More than once, my friends and I have invoked this saying to signify our determination to enjoy life despite an election—and a national mood—that does not bode well for our shared values and beliefs, despite our anxiety about anticipated rollbacks of environmental protections, social equity, climate justice and a host of other aspirations.
I believe I first heard the phrase as the title of Calvin Tomkins’ highly entertaining 1971 book about Gerald and Sara Murphy, the glamorous American couple who figured prominently in the “lost generation” of expatriate American writers and artists living in France in the 1920s. In that context, I’ve associated it with the hedonistic enjoyment of a convivial social life, intellectual and artistic pursuits, and a certain cynicism about conventional ideas of duty and morality, reflecting the bitter disillusionment that followed the mechanized slaughter of the First World War. “Eat, drink and be merry.”
As I so often discover, there’s a deeper story about the origin and meaning of this familiar phrase, which is attributed to a devout and ingenious 17th century Anglican priest and poet, George Herbert. Born in 1593 into an accomplished and artistically-inclined family, Herbert was a scholar, courtier, metaphysical poet and a member of parliament before choosing to dedicate his energies to the life of a country parson. He left a revered legacy of charitable works, thoughtful dedication to his parishioners, and hundreds of devotional poems that have been set to music over the centuries, surviving in the Methodist and Episcopal hymnals and in works by Henry Purcell, Ralph Vaughan Williams, William Walton, Benjamin Britten and Ned Rorem. Among his prose writings are a well-loved book of practical advice and inspiration for his fellow rural clerics, and a collection of proverbial sayings, published after his death, in which the aphorism “living well is the best revenge” is preserved for posterity.
Given that pedigree, I was curious about what “living well” might have signified in George Herbert’s day. Scholars agree that the saying’s original meaning is to recommend that we find our joy in living a good life, through good works and service to others, steadfast in spite of any slights or setbacks we may experience.
Jonathan Alter, a biographer of President Jimmy Carter, wrote recently in the online journal Inside Climate Change that we need to reconsider the tired formulaic cliché repeated so frequently after the former president’s death on December 29, 2024: that he was a so-so president who found his true calling in the decades after his presidency. Alter reminds us of the startling prescience Mr. Carter displayed, especially in his contributions to U.S. energy policy and climate response. In addition to his well-known support for solar energy and deployment of a solar hot water system on the roof of the White House, President Carter should be remembered for creating the nation’s first green energy policy, doubling the size of the national park system, establishing the first meaningful fuel economy standards for the U.S., and implementing the nation’s first toxic waste cleanup. Over the course of his presidency Mr. Carter signed 15 major environmental policies into law.
Perhaps most significantly, he took climate change seriously, studied the emerging scientific literature on global warming, and was the first world leader to advocate for limitations on carbon emissions. In 1980, the Carter White House identified metrics for reducing carbon emissions that, according to Alter, were “identical to those ratified 35 years later by the Paris Climate Accords . . .”
Alter credits Rosalynn Carter for an equally prescient and relevant observation about the nature of leadership: “A leader can lead people where they want to go. A great leader leads people where they ought to go.” Taking the long view, remaining tenacious in the service of our goals, and finding new pathways when the obvious routes are temporarily blocked—these are important characteristics of leadership and of a life well lived. “Living well” is not a turning inward, or even a gallant retreat, but a flexing outward with redoubled efforts and renewed purpose. We’ve been lucky to have Mr. Carter’s example for so many years.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Herbert
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/31122024/jimmy-carter-visionary/
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/jimmy-carter-climate-activism-1234683304
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