“The essence of spirit, he thought to himself, was to choose the thing which did not better one's position but made it more perilous. That was why the world he knew was poor, for it insisted morality and caution were identical.”

—  Norman Mailer, book Barbary Shore

Source: Barbary Shore (1951), Ch. 18

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Norman Mailer165
American novelist, journalist, essayist, playwright, film m… 1923–2007

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