In the high country of the mind one has to become adjusted to the thinner air of uncertainty…
The place to improve the world is first in one’s own heart and head and hands, and then work outward from there.
To some extent the romantic condemnation of rationality stems from the very effectiveness of rationality in uplifting men from primitive conditions.
There is a perennial classical question that asks which part of the motorcycle, which grain of sand in which pile, is the Buddha. Obviously to ask that question is to look in the wrong direction, for the Buddha is everywhere. But just as obviously to ask the question is to look in the right direction, for the Buddha is everwhere.
To all appearances he was just drifting. In actuality he was just drifting.
Care and Quality are internal and external aspects of the same thing. A person who sees Quality and feels it as he works is a person who cares. A person who cares about what he sees and does is a person who’s bound to have some characteristic of quality.
The truth knocks on the door and you say, “Go away, I’m looking for the truth,” and so it goes away. Puzzling.
Now we’ve a real intellectual impasse. Our reason, which is supposed to make things more intelligible, seems to be making them less intelligible, and when reason thus defeats its own purpose something has to be changed in the structure of our reason itself.