Nationalism is our form of incest, is our idolatry, is our insanity. "Patriotism" is its cult. It should hardly be necessary to sa...y, that by "patriotism" I mean that attitude which puts the own nation above humanity, above the principles of truth and justice; not the loving interest in one's own nation, which is the concern with the nation's spiritual as much as with its material welfare--never with its power over other nations. Just as love for one individual which excludes the love for others is not love, love for one's country which is not part of one's love for humanity is not love, but idolatrous worship.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
As long as fathers rule but do not nurture, as long as mothers nurture but do not rule, the conditions favoring the development of... father-daughter incest will prevail.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Philosophically, incest asks a fundamental question of our shifting mores: not simply what is normal and what is deviant, but whet...her such a thing as deviance exists at all in human relationships if they seem satisfactory to those who share them.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
God alone is our true good, and since we have forsaken him, it is a strange thing that there is nothing in nature which has not be...en serviceable in taking his place: the stars, the heavens, earth, the elements, plants, cabbages, leeks, animals, insects, calves, serpents, fever, war, famine, vices, adultery, incest.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Behold, my love, behold all that I simultaneously do: scandal, seduction, bad example, incest, adultery, sodomy! Oh, Satan! one an...d unique God of my soul, inspire thou in me something yet more, present further perversions to my smoking heart, and then shalt thou see how I shall plunge myself into them all!LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Nature allows all, by its murderous laws; Incest and rape, all theft and parricide,... All sodom's pleasures, Sappho's lesbian games, All that destroys and sends men to their graves.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The daughters of distant fathers, when they're little, don't know about biology and cultural bias and incest taboos and gender rol...e and economic downturns and all the buzz words of sociological, anthropological and psychological mitigation. All they know is that Daddy isn't there as much as Mommy . . . Daddy is simply the silent partner.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I am not sure how many "sins" I would recognize in the world. Some would surely be defused by changed circumstances. But I can ima...gine none that is more irredeemably sinful than the betrayal, the exploitation, of the young by those who should care for them.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »