Trying To Ignite Ice

“You will always be a child if you expect men to be more than they are.  If you are walking through the woods, you do not get angry at a tree that happened to grow up directly in your path.  The tree could not help it.  It existed.  You do not sit on the ground in front of that tree and lecture it.  You ignore it.  And if cannot ignore it, you remove it.  So you must act with people.  They are for the most part, like trees.  They do what they do because they are what they are.”
“And so I should ignore all those that I can and remove those that I can’t?”
“Now you are seeing the light of wisdom,” Chiun said, folding his hands in front of him with a movement as smooth as an underwater plant.
“Chiun, the world you give me is a world without morality.  Where nothing counts for anything except keeping your elbow straight and breathing right and attacking correctly.  You give me no morality and that makes my happy.  Smith gives me a shitpot full of morality and it disgusts me.  But, I like his world better than yours.”
Chiun shrugged, “That is because you do not understand the real meaning of my world.  I do not give you a world without morality.  I give you a world of total morality, but the only morality you totally control is your own.  Be moral.  You can do no greater thing in your life.”  He moved his arms around in a large slow circle.  “Try to make other people moral and you are trying to ignite ice with a match.”
—  Richard Sapir  & Warren Murphy
From their novel: “The Destroyer #30: Muggers Blood“
[I have a large number of “quotes” in my journal which are simply attributed to “House of Sinanju”.  I am sure they are all (each) from one of the 70+ books in “The Destroyer” series (co-written by Richard Sapir & Warren Murphy) which I was reading back in the 1970’s.  I didn’t record which book each quote came out of at the time I found them.  So, I’m just leaving them as recorded.  If anyone finds the book with the quote in it, and lets me know, I will be happy to attribute the quote accurately.  As this quote followed the entry saying I read #30, I assume the quote is from that book.  —  KMAB]
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Unstable Emergence

My father once told me that respect for the truth comes close to being the basis for all morality.  “Something cannot emerge from nothing,” he said.  This is profound thinking if you understand how unstable the truth can be.
—  Frank Herbert
From his novel: “Dune“
[The lessons we learn from our parents last a lifetime.  In my case, from my single parent.  Happy Birthday to my mother.  Love Always, your son Kevin  —  KMAB]
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Professional Beliefs

When a man has so far corrupted and prostituted the chastity of his mind as to subscribe his professional belief to things he does not believe, he has prepared himself for the commission of every other crime.  Can we conceive of anything more destructive to morality than this?
—    Thomas Paine
From: “The Age of Reason“
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