The Gods gave a microbe a drop of water, and in it he lived. They gave an ant a half acre of land, and he prospered. They gave a tiger the forest and he formed an empire and became an emperor. They gave man the Universe and all the knowledge therein. He entered of his own free will the dungeon of Dogma, shut his mind to truth and slew and starved his brothers.
One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed, but by the punishments that the good have inflicted; and a community is infinitely more brutalised by the habitual employment of punishment than it is by the occasional occurrence of crime.
Hope is important because it can make the present moment less difficult to bear. If we believe that tomorrow will be better, we can bear a hardship today.
