i will show you fear in a handful of dust." t.s. eliot we don't actually fear death, we fear that no one will notice our absence, that we will disappear without a trace.
As a rule, with me an unfinished [idea] is a thing that might as well be rubbed out. It's better, if there's something good in it that I might make use of elsewhere, to leave it at the back of my mind than on paper in a drawer. If I leave it in a drawer it remains the same thing but if it's in the memory it becomes transformed into something else.
When the Stranger says: "What is the meaning of this city? Do you huddle close together because you love each other?" What will you answer? "We all dwell together To make money from each other"? or "This is a community"? Oh my soul, be prepared for the coming of the Stranger. Be prepared for him who knows how to ask questions.
If we all were judged according to the consequences Of all our words and deeds, beyond the intention And beyond our limited understanding Of ourselves and others, we should all be condemned.
The good poet welds his theft into a whole of feeling which is unique, utterly different from that from which it was torn; the bad poet throws it into something which has no cohesion.
The tendency of liberals is to create bodies of men and women-of all classes-detached from tradition, alienated from religion, and susceptible to mass suggestion-mob rule. And a mob will be no less a mob if it is well fed, well clothed, well housed, and well disciplined.