Life
Born in Cork the son and heir of one of the most prosperous merchants of that city, Alderman John Thompson, who held, amongst other offices, that of Mayor in 1794. William inherited the small trading fleet and landed estate near Glandore, West Cork after his father's death in 1814. Rejecting the role of absentee landlord commonly led by those of a similar situation, William based his living quarters on the estate and despite many travels, invested much time with the tenants on the estate introducing agricultural innovations, services and education for children aimed at improving the welfare and prosperity of the families present.
Victim of weak health from an early age, Thompson became a non-smoker, teetotaller and vegetarian for the last 13 years of his life. These abstemious habits, he explained helped him in concentrating on his reading and writing. Nonetheless, by the 1830s he was suffering from a chest affliction that finally killed him on 28 March 1833. He had never married and left no direct heir.
Read more about this topic: William Thompson (philosopher)
Famous quotes containing the word life:
“Some things in life are bad
They can really make you mad
Other things just make you swear and curse
When you’re chewing on life’s gristle
Don’t grumble, give a whistle
And this’ll help turn things out for the best ...
And ... always look on the bright side of life.”
—Monty Python’s Flying Circus. Mr. Frisbee III (Eric Idle)
“You must not eat with it anything leavened. For seven days you shall eat unleavened bread with it -the bread of affliction -because you came out of the land of Egypt in great haste, so that all the days of your life you may remember the day of your departure from the land of Egypt.”
—Bible: Hebrew, Deuteronomy 16:3.
“His meter was bitter, and ironic and spectacular and inviting: so was life. There wasn’t much other life during those times than to what his pen paid the tribute of poetic tragic glamour and offered the reconciliation of the familiarities of tragedy.”
—Zelda Fitzgerald (1900–1948)