As to the family, I have never understood how that fits in with the other ideals --or, indeed, why it should be an ideal at all. A group of closely related persons living under one roof; it is a convenience, often a necessity, sometimes a pleasure, sometimes the reverse; but who first exalted it as admirable, an almost religious ideal?
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Cranks live by theory, not by pure desire. They want votes, peace, nuts, liberty, and spinning-looms not because they love these things, as a child loves jam, but because they think they ought to have them. That is one element which makes the crank.
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He felt about books as doctors feel about medicines, or managers about plays - cynical, but hopeful.
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At the worst, a house unkept cannot be so distressing as a life unlived.
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Each wrong act brings with it its own anesthetic, dulling the conscience and blinding it against further light, and sometimes for years.
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Sleeping in a bed -- it is, apparently, of immense importance. Against those who sleep, from choice or necessity, elsewhere society feels righteously hostile. It is not done. It is disorderly, anarchical.
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It is a common delusion that you make things better by talking about them.
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It was a book to kill time for those who like it better dead.
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