The Ballot or the Bullet (1964), Speech in Detroit, Michigan (12 April 1964)
“A wolf was no less a wolf because a whim of chance caused him to run with the watch-dogs.”
"Beyond the Black River" (1935)
Source: The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More (2006), Ch. 11, p. 190
1960s, Freedom From The Known (1969)
Context: For centuries we have been spoon-fed by our teachers, by our authorities, by our books, our saints. We say, "Tell me all about it — what lies beyond the hills and the mountains and the earth?" and we are satisfied with their descriptions, which means that we live on words and our life is shallow and empty. We are secondhand people. We have lived on what we have been told, either guided by our inclinations, our tendencies, or compelled to accept by circumstances and environment. We are the result of all kinds of influences and there is nothing new in us, nothing that we have discovered for ourselves; nothing original, pristine, clear.
“Dog, ounce, bear, and bull,
Wolfe, lion, horse.”
Second Week, First Day, Part iii. Compare: "Lion, bear, or wolf, or bull", William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream, act ii. sc. 1.
La Seconde Semaine (1584)
Source: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (1974), Ch. 30
Source: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values
In re North Australian Territory Co. (1891), L. J. Rep. 61 C. D. 135.
“Here, we have a dog, a wolf, a coyote and a banana. Which one is not like the others?”
100 Reasons Evolution is So Stupid! (2001)
Source: The Great God Pan (1894), Ch. VII : The Encounter in Soho
Context: I can fancy what you saw. Yes; it is horrible enough; but after all, it is an old story, an old mystery played in our day and in dim London streets instead of amidst the vineyards and the olive gardens. We know what happened to those who chanced to meet the Great God Pan, and those who are wise know that all symbols are symbols of something, not of nothing. It was, indeed, an exquisite symbol beneath which men long ago veiled their knowledge of the most awful, most secret forces which lie at the heart of all things; forces before which the souls of men must wither and die and blacken, as their bodies blacken under the electric current. Such forces cannot be named, cannot be spoken, cannot be imagined except under a veil and a symbol, a symbol to the most of us appearing a quaint, poetic fancy, to some a foolish, silly tale. But you and I, at all events, have known something of the terror that may dwell in the secret place of life, manifested under human flesh; that which is without form taking to itself a form. Oh, Austin, how can it be? How is it that the very sunlight does not turn to blackness before this thing, the hard earth melt and boil beneath such a burden?
