Never Forget: We Are Alive

As I Understand It, I Am Being Paid Only For My Work In Arranging The Words; My Property Is That Arrangement. The Thoughts In This Book, On The Contrary, Are Not Mine. They Came Freely To Me, And I Give Them Freely Away. I Have No "intellectual Property," And I Think That All Claimants To Such Property Are Theives.

Professional Standards, The Standards Of Ambition And Selfishness, Are Always Sliding Downward Toward Expense, Ostentation, And Mediocrity. They Tend Always To Narrow The Ground Of Judgment. But Amateur Standards, The Standards Of Love, Are Always Straining Upward Toward The Humble And The Best. They Enlarge The Ground Of Judgment. The Context Of Love Is The World.

The Worst Example Of Rural Poverty Is That Of Migrant Farm Workers. They Have No Permanent Jobs, So They Have No Equity In The Places Where They Work. They're Not Shareholders, Let Alone Entrepreneurs. They're Not Small Farmers, They're Not Market Gardeners, They're Just Temporary - Uprooted, Isolated, Easily Exploitable People.

The Question Before Me, Now That I Am Old, Is Not How To Be Dead, Which I Know From Enough Practice, But How To Be Alive, As These Worn Hills Still Tell, And Some Paintings Of Paul Cezanne, And This Mere Singing Wren, Who Thinks He's Alive Forever, This Instant, And May Be.

No Individual Life Is An End In Itself. One Can Live Fully Only By Participating Fully In The Succession Of The Generations, In Death As Well As In Life. Some Would Say (and I Am One Of Them) That We Can Live Fully Only By Making Ourselves Answerable To The Claims Of Eternity As To Those Of Time.