One of the most prevalent fallacies is the so-called genetic fallacy, which tempts men to argue that the first lowly origins of a thing demonstrate w… - R. W. K. Paterson

It is not difficult for a man to make a series of true statements, all unimpeachably correct, and yet to be hopelessly wrong. This is not just because there are nearly always many other facts, which he has not chosen to state, which would fill out and could utterly transform the description of reality he is trying to foist upon us. If our perceptions of reality depend on facts, they also depend on our values, for these determine not only how we see the facts but also which facts we shall see. To an embittered man, for example, nearly everything will taste bitter, but this is both because he infects each new experience with his own bitterness and also because he consistently reaches out, with uncannily sure instinct, for those types of experience which will give him fresh cause for embitterment.

The plebeian asks himself, ‘What type of person am I?’, and he seeks the answer by comparing the self he believes he is with the norms enshrined in the manufactured packages on public offer.

Endurance means that failures have to be both accepted and refused: accepted as a sign that fresh efforts now need to be made, and refused as a signal that we may now desist from effort altogether. … Courage means that the external risks and adversities we face (as distinct from or own moral and spiritual failures) are to be assessed at their true importance: that is, for the patrician, as being in themselves of no importance, as objects not of fear but of disdain.