But I know nothing of your present, and neither you nor I know anything of your future. It's appalling; in living people, one is dealing with unknown… - Aldous Huxley

For particulars, as everyone knows, make for virtue and happiness; generalities are intellectually necessary evils. Not philosophers but fretsawyers and stamp collectors compose the backbone of society.

Somebody ought to make a historical study of the relations between theology and corporal punishment in childhood. I have a theory that, wherever little boys and girls are systematically flagellated, the victims grow up to think of God as - 'Wholly Other'... A people's theology reflects the state of its children's bottoms. Look at the Hebrews - enthusiastic child-beaters. And so were all good Christians in the Age of Faith. Hence Jehovah, hence Original Sin and the infinitely offended Father of Roman and Protestant orthodoxy. Whereas among Buddhists and Hindus education has always been nonviolent. No laceration of little buttocks - therefore Tat tvam asi, thou art That, mind from Mind is not divided.... Major premise: God is Wholly Other. Minor premise: man is totally depraved. Conclusion: Do to your children's bottoms what was done to yours, what your Heavenly Father has been doing to the collective bottom of humanity ever since the Fall: whip, whip, whip!

...reality, however utopian, is something from which people feel the need of taking pretty frequent holidays....