My vision is clear and far. I could almost believe in God. But" - and his voice changed and the light went out of his face - "what is this condition … - Jack London

The trouble with him was that he was without imagination. He was quick and alert in the things of life, but only in the things, and not in the significances.

The surpluses will have to be expended somehow, and trust the oligarchs to find a way. Magnificent roads will be built. There will be great achievements in science, and especially in art. When the oligarchs have completely mastered the people, they will have time to spare for other things. They will become worshippers of beauty. They will become art-lovers. And under their direction and generously rewarded, will toil the artists. The result will be great art; for no longer, as up to yesterday, will the artists pander to the bourgeois taste of the middle class. It will be great art, I tell you, and wonder cities will arise that will make tawdry and cheap the cities of old time. And in these cities will the oligarchs dwell and worship beauty

Infinite ambition and infinite loneliness, receiving neither help nor sympathy, I did it all for myself — navigation, mathematics, science, literature and what not. And history tells of opportunity that came to the slaves who rose to the purple. No man makes opportunity. All the great men ever did was to know it when it came to them.