Ideas Get Substance And Value Not By

Most Of The Avoidable Suffering In Life Springs From Our Attempts To Escape The Unavoidable Suffering Inherent In The Fragmentary Nature Of Our Present Existence. We Expect Immortal Satisfactions From Mortal Conditions, And Lasting And Perfect Happiness In The Midst Of Universal Change. To Encourage This Expectation, To Persuade Mankind That The Ideal Is Realizable In This World, After A Few Preliminary Changes In External Conditions, Is The Distinguishing Mark Of All Charlatans, Whether In Thought Or Action.

The Reward Of Renunciation Is Some Good Greater Than The Thing Renounced. To Renounce With No Vision Of Such A Good, From Fear Or In Automatic Obedience To A Formula, Is To Weaken The Springs Of Life, And To Diminish The Soul's Resistance To This World.

A Charlatan Makes Obscure What Is Clear; A Thinker Makes Clear What Is Obscure.

There Are Dons Who Care For The Intellect And The Imagination, And There Are Priests Who Care For The Spirit; But Broadly Speaking The Function Of Universities And Churches Alike Is To Trim And Tame Enthusiasm, To Suppress Curiosity, And, In Short, To Whittle Immortal Souls Into Serviceable Props Of The Established Order.

Ideas Get Substance And Value Not By Being Discussed But By Being Lived.