"Those who crusade, not for God in themselves, but against
the devil in others, never succeed in making the world better,
but leave it either as it was, or sometimes perceptibly worse
than what it was, before the crusade began. By thinking
primarily of evil we tend, however excellent our intentions,
to create occasions for evil to manifest itself."
-- Aldous Huxley
"The only war that matters is the war against the imagination.
All others are subsumed by it."
-- Diane DiPrima, "Rant", from Pieces of a Song.
"It is difficult
to get the news from poems
yet men die miserably every day
for lack
of what is found there"
-- William Carlos Williams, "Asphodel, That Greeny Flower"
in the same vein:
http://tonykaron.com/2007/10/09/iran-the-inflatable-bogey/
Thanks Naj, good to see Trita Parsi featured here. I’m looking forward to checking out his book.
You may have noticed this news item within the last couple of days—don’t know how much store to put in it but its good to read there might be some good sense in this current US administration, at least on Iran:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml…