Our Individual Lives Cannot, Generally, Be Works

No Matter What A Man Does, He Is Not Fully Sane Or Human Unless There Is A Spirit Of Freedom In Him, A Soul Unconfined By Purpose And Larger Than The Practicable World.

Each Man Must Have His I; It Is More Necessary To Him Than Bread; And If He Does Not Find Scope For It Within The Existing Institutions He Will Be Likely To Make Trouble.

Institutions - Government, Churches, Industries, And The Like - Have Properly No Other Function Than To Contribute To Human Freedom; And In So Far As They Fail, On The Whole, To Perform This Function, They Are Wrong And Need Reconstruction.

The Idealist's Program Of Political Or Economic Reform May Be Impracticable, Absurd, Demonstrably Ridiculous; But It Can Never Be Successfully Opposed Merely By Pointing Out That This Is The Case. A Negative Opposition Cannot Be Wholly Effectual: There Must Be A Competing Idealism; Something Must Be Offered That Is Not Only Less Objectionable But More Desirable.

We Cannot Feel Strongly Toward The Totally Unlike Because It Is Unimaginable, Unrealizable; Nor Yet Toward The Wholly Like Because It Is Stale - Identity Must Always Be Dull Company. The Power Of Other Natures Over Us Lies In A Stimulating Difference Which Causes Excitement And Opens Communication, In Ideas Similar To Our Own But Not Identical, In States Of Mind Attainable But Not Actual.