What prudent merchant will hazard his fortunes in any new branch of commerce when he knows not that his plans may be rendered unlawful before they can be executed?
No matter how mistaken Communist ideas may be, the experience and knowledge gained by trying them out have given a tremendous impetus to thought and imagination.
It is not in the world of ideas that life is lived. Life is lived for better or worse in life, and to a man in life, his life can be no more absurd than it can be the opposite of absurd, whatever that opposite may be.
Men who are in prison for rape think it's the dumbest thing that ever happened... they were put in jail for something very little different from what most men do most of the time and call it sex. The only difference is they got caught. It may also be true.
I have always held those political opinions which point to the universal brotherhood of man, no matter in what rank of life he may have taken his origin.
Severities should be dealt out all at once, so that their suddenness may give less offense; benefits ought to be handed ought drop by drop, so that they may be relished the more.
It is all nonsense, to be sure; and so much the greater nonsense inasmuch as the true interpretation of many dreams - not by any means of all dreams - moves, it may be said, in the opposite direction to the method of psycho-analysis.
My table is now brightly, now dimly lighted. Its temperature varies. It may receive an ink stain. One of its legs may be broken. It may be repaired, polished, and replaced part by part. But, for me, it remains the table at which I daily write.
Some people may get in to the building without the proper passes and things, but I think that's the price you pay for being an open place for people to come.
