“There is no cruelty so inexorable and unrelenting as that which proceeds from a bigoted and presumptuous supposition of doing service to God. The victim of the fanatical persecutor will find that the stronger the motives he can urge for mercy are, the weaker will be his chance for obtaining it, for the merit of his destruction will be supposed to rise in value in proportion as it is effected at the expense of every feeling both of justice and of humanity.” FeelingsValuesHumanityJusticeChanceDestructionMercyStrongerVictimCrueltyMeritMotiveProportionUrgesExpensesFanaticismObtainingInexorablePresumptuousSuppositionUnrelentingService To God Book:Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think Source: Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think
“Our politics and science have never mastered the fact that people need more than to understand their obligation to one another and to the earth; they need also the feeling of such obligation, and the feeling can come only within the patterns of familiarity. A nation of urban nomads, such as we have become, may simply be unable to be enough disturbed by its destruction of the ecological health of the land, because the people's dependence on the land, though it has been expounded to them over and over again in general terms, is not immediate to their feelings.” PeopleNeedsMayHas BeensEnoughFactsFeelingsEarthNationsTermLandDestructionPatternsObligationUrbanDependenceFamiliarityDisturbedEcologicalNomad Author:Wendell Berry
“I'm beginning to feel that the real endangered species on planet earth are not the whales and the elephants but those of us who can laugh at the world and ourselves. ... I fear the dry turn of the American mind, this focus on the literal, as much as I fear our capacity for self-destruction. We've become hagridden by facts, obsessed with product instead of process. Where's the energetic wit, the looney outlook, the frivolity, the lightness of comforting laughter? It has become fashionable to know and unfashionable to feel, and you can't really laugh if you can't feel.” IfsKnowsWorldFeelsMindRealSelfFactsFeelingsHumorEarthTurnsProcessLaughingFocusPlanetsProductsLaughterCapacityDestructionSpeciesWitObsessedDryElephantsOutlookComfortingFashionableLiteralWhalesEnergeticPlanet EarthSelf DestructionLightnessFrivolityEndangered Species Author:Rita Mae Brown
“The existence of very pious feelings, in conjunction with intolerance, cruelty, and selfish policy, has never ceased to surprise and perplex those who have viewed it calmly from a distance. ... It is impossible to exaggerate the evil work theology has done in the world. What destruction of the beautiful monuments of past ages, what waste of life, what disturbance of domestic and social happiness, what perverted feelings, what blighted hearts, have always marked its baneful progress!” WorldHeartDoneFeelingsAgePastBeautifulEvilSocialExistenceProgressImpossiblePolicyWasteDestructionDistanceSurpriseSelfishTheologyCrueltyHypocrisyIntoleranceMonumentPiousDisturbanceConjunctionsWaste Of Life Author:Lydia M. Child