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It was an unlimited acceptance, an eternal yea.
My dear, I used to think I was serving humanity . . . and I pleasured in the thought. Then I discovered that humanity does not want to be served; on the contrary it resents any attempt to serve it.
The Universe was a silly place at best . . . but the least likely explanation for it was the no-explanation of random chance, the conceit that abstract somethings “just happened” to be atoms that “just happened” to get together in ways which “just happened” to look like consistent laws and some configurations “just happened” to possess self-awareness and that two “just happened” to be the Man from Mars and a bald-headed old coot with Jubal inside.
Random chance was not a sufficient explanation of the Universe—random chance was not sufficient to explain random chance; the pot could not hold itself.
“Congratulations! A desire not to butt into other people’s business is eighty percent of all human wisdom.”
As morals, Fosterism is the Freudian ethic sugar-coated for people who can’t take psychology straight,
“Only it’s not. Bits that grok true, but never a pattern—or if there is, they ask you to take the hard part on faith! Faith! What a dirty monosyllable—Jill, why didn’t you mention that one when you were teaching me the short words that mustn’t be used in polite company?”
‘Love’ is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.”
“But mostly they debate how we can be made to obey this code—ignoring the evidence that most tragedies they see around them are rooted in the code itself rather than in failure to abide by it.
Age does not bring wisdom, Ben, but it does give perspective . . . and the saddest sight of all is to see, far behind you, temptations you’ve resisted.
He ought to sign up with ‘Workers Anonymous.’
“But goodness alone is never enough. A hard, cold wisdom is required for goodness to accomplish good. Goodness without wisdom always accomplishes evil.”
