Maxims in times of danger are useless, experience is incommunicable. The knotted strands of life, desire, assumptions, and moral codes cannot be unsnarled; they can only be cut, which is what happens when an air raid occurs, with a silencing fortissimo like the finale of a Beethoven symphony.
Jacques BarzunTo denounce does not free the self from what it hates, any more than ignoring the past shuts off its influence.
Jacques BarzunTo delve into history entails, besides the grievance of hard work, the danger that in the depths one may lose oneโs scapegoats.
Jacques Barzun