“Behold the complacent salesman retailing the Good and True.One can even buy a so-called Religion, which is really but commonmorality sanctified with flowers and music. Rob the Church of heraccessories and what remains behind? Yet the trusts thrive marvelously,for the prices are absurdly cheap,--a prayer for a ticket to heaven,a diploma for an honorable citizenship.Hide yourself under a bushelquickly, for if your real usefulness were known to the world you wouldsoon be knocked down to the highest bidder by the public auctioneer.”

“Hide yourself under a bushel quickly, for if your real usefulness were known to the world you would soon be knocked down to the highest bidder by the public auctioneer.”

“One can even buy a so-called Religion,which is really but common morality sanctified with flowers and music. Rob the Church of her accessories and what remains behind?”

“Have you not noticed that the wild flowers are becoming scarcer every year? It may be that their wise men have told them to depart till man becomes more human. Perhaps they have migrated to heaven.”

“One cannot listen to different pieces of music at the same time, a real comprehension of the beautiful being possible only through concentration upon some central motive.”

“Fain would we remain barbarians, if our claim to civilization were to be based on the gruesome glory of war.”

“These Taoists' ideas have greatly influenced all our theories of action, even to those of fencing and wrestling. Jiu-jitsu, the Japanese art of self-defence, owes its name to a passage in the Tao-teking. In jiu-jitsu one seeks to draw out and exhaust the enemy's strength by non-resistance, vacuum, while conserving one's own strength for victory in the final struggle. In art the importance of the same principle is illustrated by the value of suggestion. In leaving something unsaid the beholder is given a chance to complete the idea and thus a great masterpiece irresistibly rivets your attention until you seem to become actually a part of it. A vacuum is there for you to enter and fill up the full measure of your aesthetic emotion.”