Ruth Stebelska’s Reviews > Not with a Bang But a Whimper: The Politics and Culture of Decline > Status Update

Half the harm that is done in the world is due to people who want to feel important. They don't want to do harm - but the harm does not interest them... or they don't see it... because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves. [TS Eliot]

All understanding of the imperfectibility of life is necessary for both happiness and virtue.

Those who, in confidence of superior capacities or attainments, disregard the common maxims of life, shall be reminded that nothing will supply the want of prudence, and that negligence and irregularity long continued will make knowledge useless, wit ridiculous, and genius contemptible [S. Johnson]

There is no torture greater than that of a man who is unable to express what is in his soul.