“There is a deep irony in the fact that the more nearly an ideal is brought to realization, the more acutely do the saints and heroes who have committed themselves to the task, experience a vehement sense of failure in not having perfected their ideal in its totality; and inversely, the more perfunctory is the pursuit of an ideal, the less are people troubled by discrepancies between practice and principle.”

—  William H. McNeill

Discrepancies among the Social Sciences (1981)

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William H. McNeill photo
William H. McNeill 43
Canadian historian 1917–2016

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