A Man At His Desk

All Wars Derive From Lack Of Empathy: The Incapacity Of One To Understand And Accept The Likeness Or Difference Of Another. Whether In Nations Or The Encounters Of Race And Sex, Competition Then Replaces Compassion, Subjection Excludes Mutuality.

The Great Omission In American Life Is Solitude; Not Loneliness, For This Is An Alienation That Thrives Most In The Midst Of Crowds, But That Zone Of Time And Space, Free From The Outside Pressures, Which Is The Incubator Of The Spirit.

In Our Long And Obsessive Passion For Youth, We Have - More Than Any Other Modern Society - Avoided Direct Approach To Age And To Dying By Denying Them In Word, In Fact, And - Above All - In Worth.

Slowly The Wasters And Despoilers Are Impoverishing Our Land, Our Nature, And Our Beauty, So That There Will Not Be One Beach, One Hill, One Lane, One Meadow, One Forest Free From The Debris Of Man And The Stigma Of His Improvidence.

There Is Nothing Harder To Come By Than Detachment And Solitude; And Nothing More Important.