Whom The Gods Wish To Destroy They

There Are Many Who Dare Not Kill Themselves For Fear Of What The Neighbours Will Say.

A Stone Lies In A River; A Piece Of Wood Is Jammed Against It; Dead Leaves, Drifting Logs, And Branches Caked With Mud Collect; Weeds Settle There, And Soon Birds Have Made A Nest And Are Feeding Their Young Among The Blossoming Water Plants. Then The River Rises And The Earth Is Washed Away. The Birds Depart, The Flowers Wither, The Branches Are Dislodged And Drift Downward; No Trace Is Left Of The Floating Island But A Stone Submerged By The Water; - Such Is Our Personality.

Civilization Is Maintained By A Very Few People In A Small Number Of Places And We Need Only Some Bombs And A Few Prisons To Blot It Out Altogether.

Civilization Is An Active Deposit Which Is Formed By The Combustion Of The Present With The Past. Neither In Countries Without A Present Nor In Those Without A Past Is It To Be Encountered. Proust In Venice, Matisse's Birdcages Overlooking The Flower Market At Nice, Gide On The Seventeenth-century Quais Of Toulon, Lorca In Granada, Picasso By Saint-germain-des-prés: There Lies Civilization And For Me It Can Exist Only Under Those Liberal Regimes In Which The Present Is Alive And Therefore Capable Of Assimilating The Past.

All Charming People Have Something To Conceal, Usually Their Total Dependence On The Appreciation Of Others.