A creature who has spent his life creating one particular representation of his selfdom will die rather than become the antithesis of that representation

The stakes in conflict do not change. Battle determines who will control the wealth or its equivalent.

Truth suffers from too much analysis.

You've heard of animals chewing off a leg to escape a trap? There's an animal kind of trick. A human would remain in the trap, endure the pain, feigning death that he might kill the trapper and remove a threat to his kind.

All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts pathological personalities.

In politics, the tripod is he most unstable of all structures. It's be bad enough without the complication of a feudal trade culture which turns its back on most science.

The willow submits to the wind and prospers until one day it is many willows - a wall against the wind.