Saturday, December 22, 2007

Quote of the Day

Those who inaugurate systems, religious or secular, to perfect humankind invariably find themselves frustrated by the glorious intractability of men and women. First the unbelievers or the heretics or the capitalists have to go. Then the poets go, along with the dubious books. And then the "rich" peasant landholders and the adulterers have to go. Then the comrades whose revolutionary zeal appears in danger of faltering and the fellow believers whose faith may be too weak have to go too. The soundtrack for utopia consists of cell doors slamming and the shrieks of the dying, of bullets fired into the back of heads and the weeping of the survivors.

- Ralph Peters

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