Hey, "There are two ways of making a revolution. Put a gun in a man's hand and make him shoot or put an idea into a man's head and make him think. We prefer the latter." --- The Masses. 1911.

And having 'pushed on, we arrive at a relatively ambiguous truth about ourselves; But why not? "Man is a creature of ambiguity. His salvation and his sanity depend on his ability to harmonize the deep conflicts in his thought, his emotions, his personal mythology. Honesty and authenticity do not depend on complete freedom from contradictions -- such freedom is impossible -- but on recognizing our self-contradictions and not masking them with bad faith." --- Thomas Merton

The politics of a country can only be an
extension of its ideas or human relationships --- Naipaul

But men are so simple, and governed so much
by their present needs, that he who wishes
to deceive will never fail in finding willing dupes. --- Machiavelli. The Prince.

To some a single farewell suffices.
You who stopped a bullet
Turning a hill on a bright Spanish morning;
You who swam too far
Lured by the lake's glistening smile;
You in whom a sick rose blossomed
But who spoke poems in a dying whisper'
Farewell! You did well in your brief passage.
To others I bid farewell daily.
You love, who gave up love,
Pressed between pages of a book
like a dehydrated flower.
You swan, who gave up loving
to grow fat among kitchen dishes;
To you I say farewell daily.
You who turned your back on clamorous candles
to walk down a long boulevard of silence.
You who gave up your attics for apartments,
who kept your jobs, who stayed out of trouble,
farewell, farewell! each day of my existence --- Pillim

The madman shouted in the market place. No one stopped to answer him. Thus it was confirmed that his thesis was incontrovertible. --- Dag Hammarskjold

THERMOPYLAE

Honor to those whoever in their lives
Have set the bounds and guard Thermopylae.
Never moving from the line of duty;
Righteous and fair in all their actions
With sympathy as well and with compassion;
If they are rich, generous, and if again
They are poor, generous in little things,
Still helping others as much as they can;
Always speaking the truth,
Yet without bitterness against the liars.
And again greater honor becomes them
When they foresee (and many do foresee)
That Ephialtes will be there in the end,
And the Medes at last, they will get through. --- Cavafy

A coward thinks he will live forever if he avoids his enemies, but old age no man escapes even if he survives the spears. --- the Havamal

Nor is it a new thing for man to invent an existence that he imagines to be above the rest of life; this has been his most consistent intellectual exertion down the millennia. As illusion, it has never worked out to his satisfaction in the past, any more than it does today. ---- Lewis Thomas. The Lives of the Cell.

SHINE, PERISHING REPUBLIC

While this America settles in the mould of its vulgarity,


heavily thickening to empire,


And protest, only a bubble in the molten mass, pops


and sighs out, and the mass hardens,


I sadly smiling remember that the flower fades to make


fruit, the fruit rots to make earth,


Out of the mother; and through the spring exultances,


ripeness and decadence; and home to the mother.


You making haste haste on decay; not blameworthy; life


is good, be it stubbornly long or suddenly


A mortal splendor; meteors are not needed less than


mountains; shine, perishing republic.


But for my children, I would have them keep their distance


from the thickening center; corruption


Never has been compulsory, when the cities lie at the


monster's feet there are left the mountains.


And boys, be in nothing so moderate as in love of man,


a clever servant, insufferable master.


There is a trap that catches noblest spirits, that caught


--they say--God, when he walked the earth


----- Robinson Jeffers. Selected Poems.