
Source: Miracle of the Rose
Volume 1, Ch. 12
Fiction, The Book of the Long Sun (1993–1996)
Source: Miracle of the Rose
“Be honest about what you see, get out of the way and let the story reveal itself”
1900s, The Moral Equivalent of War (1906)
Context: It would seem that common sense and reason ought to find a way to reach agreement in every conflict of honest interests. I myself think it our bounden duty to believe in such international rationality as possible. But, as things stand, I see how desperately hard it is to bring the peace-party and the war-party together, and I believe that the difficulty is due to certain deficiencies in the program of pacifism which set the military imagination strongly, and to a certain extent justifiably, against it. In the whole discussion both sides are on imaginative and sentimental ground. It is but one utopia against another, and everything one says must be abstract and hypothetical.
“There's one way to find out if a man is honest: ask him; if he says yes, you know he's crooked.”
“There's one way to find out if a man is honest - ask him. If he says "yes" you know he is a crook.”