Dollars! All their cares, hopes, joys, affections, virtues, and associations seemed to be melted down into dollars. Whatever the c...hance contributions that fell into the slow cauldron of their talk, they made the gruel thick and slab with dollars. Men were weighed by their dollars, measures were gauged by their dollars; life was auctioneered, appraised, put up, and knocked down for its dollars. The next respectable thing to dollars was any venture having their attainment for its end. The more of that worthless ballast, honour and fair-dealing, which any man cast overboard from the ship of his Good Nature and Good Intent, the more ample stowage-room he had for dollars. Make commerce one huge lie and mighty theft. Deface the banner of the nation for an idle rag; pollute it star by star; and cut out stripe by stripe as from the arm of a degraded soldier. Do anything for dollars! What is a flag to them!LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
We must learn to differentiate between fears and anxieties. Fears are states of apprehension which focus on isolated and recogniza...ble dangers so that they may be judiciously appraised and realistically countered. Anxieties are diffuse states of tension (caused by a loss of mutual regulation and a consequent upset in libidinal and aggressive controls) which magnify and even cause the illusion of an outer danger, without pointing to appropriate avenues of defense or mastery. These two forms of apprehension obviously often occur together, and we can insist on a strict separation only for the sake of the present argument. If, in an economic depression, a man is afraid that he may lose his money, his fear may be justified. But if the idea of having to live on an income only ten times, instead of twenty-five times as large as that of his average fellow-citizen causes him to lose his nerve and to commit suicide, then we must consult our clinical formulas.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »