Kevin

“I think it is the symbol story of the human soul. I’m feeling my way now—don’t jump on me if I’m not clear. The greatest terror a child can have is that he is not loved, and rejection is the hell he fears. I think everyone in the world to a large or small extent has felt rejection. And with rejection comes anger, and with anger some kind of crime in revenge for the rejection, and with the crime guilt—and there is the story of mankind. I think that if rejection could be amputated, the human would not be what he is. Maybe there would be fewer crazy people. I am sure in myself there would not be many jails.”
― John Steinbeck, East of Eden

“Our species is the only creative species, and it has only one creative instrument, the individual mind and spirit of a man. Nothing was ever created by two men. There are no good collaborations, whether in music, in art, in poetry, in mathematics, in philosophy. Once the miracle of creation has taken place, the group can build and extend it, but the group never invents anything. The preciousness lies in the lonely mind of a man. And now the forces marshaled around the concept of the group have declared a war of extermination on that preciousness, the mind of man. By disparagement, by starvation, by repressions, forced direction, and the stunning hammerblows of conditioning, the free, roving mind is being pursued, roped, blunted, drugged. It is a sad suicidal course our species seems to have taken. And this I believe: that the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world. And this I would fight for: the freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected. And this I must fight against: any idea, religion, or government which limits or destroys the individual. This is what I am and what I am about. I can understand why a system built on a pattern must try to destroy the free mind, for that is one thing which can by inspection destroy such a system. Surely I can understand this, and I hate it and I will fight against it to preserve the one thing that separates us from the uncreative beasts. If the glory can be killed, we are lost.”
― John Steinbeck, East of Eden

“Indifference is more truly the opposite of love than hate is, for we can both love and hate the same person at the same time, but we cannot both love and be indifferent to the same person at the same time.”
― Peter Kreeft, Prayer for Beginners

“Nationalism is tribalistic, triumphalist, idolatrous, exclusivist and violates justice. But patriotism is an expression of devotion to country that is defined by justice. In other words, patriotism is love expressed to the national community, but it is love properly measured and applied. Patriotism acknowledges a proper place for devotion, loyalty, gratitude and sacrifice for one’s country. But patriotic expressions do not exclude others by necessity. They only do so if those exclusions are just—necessary for the protection of the whole. Koyzis wrote, “We are here referring to that community of citizens created by political power but deepened in the development of a shared commitment to, and love of that community. . . . Such loyalty is not idolatrous worship of a nation; rather, it is a limited affection for a community of fellow citizens.”
― John D. Wilsey, American Exceptionalism and Civil Religion: Reassessing the History of an Idea