coastal people

never really know what the ocean symbolizes to land-locked inland people - what a great distant dream it is, present but unseen in the deepest levels of subconsciousness, and when they arrive at the ocean and the conscious images are compared with the subconscious dream there is a sense of defeat at having come so far to be so stopped by a mystery that can never be fathomed.

quality for sheep

is what the shepherd says. and if you take a sheep and put it up at the timberline at night when the wind is roaring, that sheep will be panicked half to death and will call and call until the shepherd comes, or comes the wolf.

(1781) our age is the genuine age

of criticism, to which everything must submit. religion through its holiness and legislation through its majesty commonly seek to exempt themselves from it. but in this way they excite a just suspicion against themselves, and cannot lay claim to that unfeigned respect that reason grants only to that which has been able to withstand its free and public examination

the church of reason

he didn't get whipped. he didn't work. and the cart of civilization, which he supposedly was being trained to pull, was just going to have to creak along a little slower without him.

this is a tragedy, however, only if you presume that the cart of civilization, "the system", is pulled by mules. this is a common, vocational, "location" point of view, but it's not the Church attitude.

the Church attitude is that civilization, or "the system" or "society" or whatever you want to call it, is best served not by mules but by free men.