Sanity is the lot of those who are most obtuse, for lucidity destroys one's equilibrium: it is unhealthy to honestly endure the la...bors of the mind which incessantly contradict what they have just established.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The world is not dialectical--it is sworn to extremes, not to equilibrium, sworn to radical antagonism, not to reconciliation or s...ynthesis. This is also the principle of evil.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Disagreement produces debate but dissent produces dissension. Dissent (which come from the Latin, dis and sentire) means originall...y to feel apart from others. People who disagree have an argument, but people who dissent have a quarrel. People may disagree and both may count themselves in the majority. But a person who dissents is by definition in a minority. A liberal society thrives on disagreement but is killed by dissension. Disagreement is the life blood of democracy, dissension is its cancer.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
In our wildest aberrations we dream of an equilibrium we have left behind and which we naively expect to find at the end of our er...rors. Childish presumption which justifies the fact that child- nations, inheriting our follies, are now directing our history.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
For centuries the death penalty, often accompanied by barbarous refinements, has been trying to hold crime in check; yet crime per...sists. Why? Because the instincts that are warring in man are not, as the law claims, constant forces in a state of equilibrium.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
When a person hasn't in him that which is higher and stronger than all external influences, it is enough for him to catch a good c...old in order to lose his equilibrium and begin to see an owl in every bird, to hear a dog's bark in every sound.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
We Americans have the chance to become someday a nation in which all radical stocks and classes can exist in their own selfhoods, ...but meet on a basis of respect and equality and live together, socially, economically, and politically. We can become a dynamic equilibrium, a harmony of many different elements, in which the whole will be greater than all its parts and greater than any society the world has seen before. It can still happen.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
... when a great burly six feet of masculinity with sloping shoulders and unkempt beard swaggers in, and, throwing a roll of tobac...co into one corner of his jaw, growls out at me over the paper I am reading, "Here gurl," (I am past thirty) "you better git out 'n dis kyar 'f yer don't, I'll put yer out"Mmy mental annotation is Here's an American citizen who has been badly trained. He is sadly lacking in both "sweetness" and "light" ...LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
That doctrine [of peace at any price] has done more mischief than any I can well recall that have been afloat in this country. It ...has occasioned more wars than any of the most ruthless conquerors. It has disturbed and nearly destroyed that political equilibrium so necessary to the liberties and the welfare of the world.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
In dis world dey's many folks think dey's alive as ain't alive. Dey's alive accordin' to de whited sepulchers o' de world and dead... accordin' to de sperits o' de prophets. It's dem dey ought to cart away in hearses, brethren! It's dem dat's felt tingle within 'em de breath o' de Lawd, like a bird, like a maukin' in de woods, a song full o' warm honey, and all de same ain't follered de call, but has carried deir sperits in a hearse at de end o' de parade of de pomp o' de world. Hit's dem dat dade! Hit's dem dat's dade!LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »