The Experience of Clarity

245 Only I have the metaphor for my center. A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

72 For a genuine tolerance , a struggle must exist and result in our granting an opponent freedom for the sake of our higher law – and precisely when one is absolutely certain that the opponent is in the wrong .   For if one were uncertain , one should not appeal to tolerance at all ... but to the wisdom of waiting for adequate information.  A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

246 What are the modern stigmata?  Sympathetic suffering ... another’s suffering, or distant suffering, but always safe ... as when at a dinner party we wear our brows heavily over the latest crisis in the news media.  To do away with stigmata ... to do away with the need to prove our sympathetic suffering is the next task.  Our need to exhibit ourselves involves a kind of suffering, albeit quite different from the suffering communicated.  That one privately suffers in the struggle away from suffering is enough to make a Buddha out of the least of us.  How false and unholy do all stigmata appear after we sanctify ourselves with our own crucified presumptions? A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

73 The Parasites: He was a person so self-indulgent he had more enemies than friends and was in the end left no resort but to take tolerance as genuine affection. He got closer; the tolerant did not budge.  In this social contract, they did not entangle themselves with something beneath them and he believed he sucked blood from stone. The weak are saved by their imagination.  We should not take it from them.  If we should feel the need to swat the parasite, we would perhaps only be in need of salvation ourselves. A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

247 I cannot fully separate myself from society, and I cannot fully integrate myself.  I am nothing apart, and nothing wholly within.  Individualism must lie in remaining a small part of a great mountain ... never disintegrating under pressure, but using that same pressure to become, like a diamond from a lump of coal, harder and brighter over time. A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

74 We can tolerate almost any difficulty except those expectations we peg high on ideals which exist, not to guide us toward happiness (although that was the original promise), but to squeeze our imagination through this ignorance of our own condition and out into a discovery of who we really are.  Suddenly we find that the limitless toleration demanded of us by others is often only how we avoid having to tolerate our own plodding minds.  A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

248 Society is the fast talking salesman, talks us into the corner and then charges rent for the whole of our existence.  I am indebted for as long as I listen ... as long as I look beyond myself for rules. A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

75 An escapist is someone who refuses to entangle himself with the crowd's projection of his moral duty. He is at his most reprehensible when he refuses to call an outlet for moral superiority his concern for others. A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

249 Any device the institution uses to enslave I can use to master myself. A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

76 He had an excess of genius, talent, power, and freedom.  This magnanimous overflow was a sheltering strength ... his compassion.   They were choking hopelessly on their envy  – then one day he fell and converted their envy into their strength and compassion.  Why, now they even love their enemy. A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

250 Look into the machinery of every lasting institution dedicated to a moral end: their power, manipulation, and indoctrination are not evil; only my own control of my own fate is evil.  Very well then, I confess.  I am the devil’s closest ally, for this is the one thing I will never relinquish. A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

77 A refusal to congratulate is an offense which cannot be prosecuted, for the victor who demands the congratulations of a rival exposes not only his dependence upon the other’s approval but his own vanity as well.  The refusal to congratulate may reveal a petty nature, but it gets its little revenge with impunity. A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

251 The question is not, “Where is society going?”  ... but, “Where would ‘I’ go if I could take control ... of myself? ” A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

78 As for those who would not congratulate me for a success, I would find it unbearable if they should have the opportunity to show sympathy for my downfall.  The more sincerely they believe in their sympathy the more my rude dismissal is compounded with an ingratitude that I can neither defend nor endure.  Their best wishes on my behalf hasten the circulation of the poison already running through my veins.  Humiliating another through sympathy is the perfect crime. A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism