Allen Wheelis

“Matter would have the universe a uniform dispersion, motionless, complete. Spirit would have an earth, a heaven and a hell, whirl and conflict, an incandescent sun to drive away the dark, to illuminate good and evil, would have thought, memory, desire, would build a stairway of forms increasing in complexity, inclusiveness, to a heaven ever receding above, changing always in configuration, becoming when reached but the way to more distant heavens, the last . . . but there is no last, for spirit tends upward without end, wanders, spirals, dips, but tends ever upward, ruthlessly using lower forms to create higher forms, moving toward ever greater inwardness, consciousness, spontaneity, to an ever greater freedom.”

“Desire is endless and unappeasable, is most intense where most forbidden, and is never far from despair.”

“Certainty is not to be had. But as we learn this we become not more moral but more resigned. We become nihilists.”

“One can often recognize herd animals by their tendency to carry bibles.”