Power is power as the sun is the sun, the wind is the wind. The villager blesses the rain as it falls on his crops; the pillager uses it to cover his approach. It is the wielder who determines the good or evil.

Recent history takes a while to set. People really don’t know what just happened. They only figure it out later.

Man constantly prayed to God for peace, but peace never happened, so he decided that his god must really want war because the other side was sinful. Man invented and extolled virtues which could only be exemplified under conditions of war, like heroism and gallantry and honor, and he gave himself laurel wreaths or booty or medals for such things, thus rewarding himself for behaving well while sinning. He did it when he was a primitive, and he went on with it after he thought he was civilized.

Only mavericks live in accordance with their desires, and even they don’t often get away with it. They are usually labeled as troublemakers and gotten rid of.

The scripture worshippers put the writings ahead of God. Instead of interpreting God’s actions in nature, for example, they interpret nature in the light of the Scripture. Nature says the rock is billions of years old, but the book says different, so even though men wrote the book, and God made the rock and God gave us minds that have found ways to tell how old it is, we still choose to believe the Scripture.

Often we wish to be exorcised of demons we ourselves have allowed house room.

There is nothing so delightful, so pure, so innocent or enjoyable that some group has not forbidden it.

Rich people didn’t get in that kind of mess. They never had. Only the poor got trapped: by ignorance, by religion, by self-righteous laws passed by people who broke them with impunity.

No aristocrat would sit in the wild grass to dream. Aristocrats have gardens for that, if they dream at all.

Once we’re grown, all we can hear are what the poet described: the echoes, dying.