/ . " "/
Ogden Nash
Inter-Office Memorandum
The only people who should really sin
Are the people who can sin with a grin,
Because if sinning upsets you,
Why, nothing at all is that it gets you.
Everybody certainly ought to eschew all offences however venial
As long as they are conscience's menial.
Some people suffer weeks of remorse after having committed
the slightest peccadillo,
And other people feel perfectly all right after feeding their
husbands arsenic or smothering their grandmother with a
pillow.
Some people are perfectly self-possessed about spending their lives
on the verge of delirium tremens,
And other people feel like hanging themselves on a coathook just
because they took that extra cocktail and amused their fellow
guesses with recitations from the poems of Mrs. Hemans.
Some people calmly live a barnyard life because they find
monogamy dull and arid,
And other people have sinking spells if they dance twice in an
evening with a laddy to whom they aren't married.
Some people feel forever lost if they are riding on a bus and the
conductor doesn't collect their fare,
And other people ruin a lot of widows and orphans and all they
think is, Why there's something in this business of ruining
widows and orphans, and they go out and ruin some more and
get to be a millionaire.
Now it is not the purpose of this memorandum, or song,
To attempt to define the difference between right and wrong;
All I am trying to say is that if you are one of the unfortunates who
recognize that such a difference exists,
Well, you had better oppose even the teensiest temptation with
clenched fists,
Because if you desire peace of mind it is all right to do wrong if it
never occurs to you that it is wrong to do it,
Because you can sleep perfectly well and look the world in the eye
after doing anything at all so long as you don't rue it,
While on the other hand nothing at all is any fun
So long as you yourself know it is something you shouldn't have
done.
There is only one way to achieve happiness on this terrestrial ball,
And that is to have either a clear conscience, or none at all.
,
,
,
.
,
.
,
,
,
.
, delirium
tremens,
,
.
,
,
, .
, , ,
,
,
.
, ,
,
, ,
:
,
.
,
,
, ;
, .
, , ,
,
.
,
:
,
.
.
