We are just beginning to learn that our same old habits, like the exploitation of nonrenewable resources, may make us at one with the auk and the dod… - Sydney J. Harris

The world has always been betrayed by decent men with bad ideals.

Yet, advice on what we can do is usually futile — for we will do nothing except applaud the speaker, accept those ideas of his we already agree with, and reject those ideas that run counter to our prejudices.

The acceptance of ambiguity implies more than the commonplace understanding that some good things and some bad things happen to us. It means that we know that good and evil are inextricably intermixed in human affairs; that they contain, and sometimes embrace, their opposites; that success may involve failure of a different kind, and failure may be a kind of triumph.