Greed, Like The Love Of Comfort, Is

Civilization Is An Active Deposit Which Is Formed By The Combustion Of The Present With The Past. Neither In Countries Without A Present Nor In Those Without A Past Is It To Be Encountered. Proust In Venice, Matisse's Birdcages Overlooking The Flower Market At Nice, Gide On The Seventeenth-century Quais Of Toulon, Lorca In Granada, Picasso By Saint-germain-des-prés: There Lies Civilization And For Me It Can Exist Only Under Those Liberal Regimes In Which The Present Is Alive And Therefore Capable Of Assimilating The Past.

Hate Is The Consequence Of Fear; We Fear Something Before We Hate; A Child Who Fears Noises Becomes The Man Who Hates Them.

Life Is A Maze In Which We Take The Wrong Turning Before We Have Learned To Walk.

The Headmistress Was An Able Instructress In French And History And We Learned With Her As Fast As Fear Could Teach Us.

It Is Significant Comment On The Victory Of Science Over Magic That Were Someone To Say ‘if I Put This Pill In Your Beer It Will Explode,’ We Might Believe Them; But Were They To Cry ‘if I Pronounce This Spell Over Your Beer It Will Go Flat,’ We Should Remain Incredulous And Paracelsus, The Alchemists, Aleister Crowley And All The Magi Have Lived In Vain. Yet When I Read Science I Turn Magical; When I Study Magic, Scientific.