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The task of art is enormous. Through the influence of real art,
aided by science, guided by religion, that peaceful co-operation of man is
now obtained by external means-by law courts, police, charitable
institutions, factory inspection, etc.-should be obtained by man\'s free
and joyous activity. Art should cause violence to be set aside. And it is
only art that can accomplish this.
Leo N. Tolstoy

X



For shame! deny that thou bear\'st love to any,

Who for thy self art so unprovident.

Grant, if thou wilt, thou art belov\'d of many,

But that thou none lov\'st is most evident:

For thou art so possess\'d with murderous hate,

That \'gainst thy self thou stick\'st not to conspire,

Seeking that beauteous roof to ruinate

Which to repair should be thy chief desire.

O! change thy thought, that I may change my mind:

Shall hate be fairer lodg\'d than gentle love?

Be, as thy presence is, gracious and kind,

Or to thyself at least kind-hearted prove:

  Make thee another self for love of me,

  That beauty still may live in thine or thee.

 	--William Shakespeare

CXLVII



My love is as a fever longing still,

For that which longer nurseth the disease;

Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill,

The uncertain sickly appetite to please.

My reason, the physician to my love, 

Angry that his prescriptions are not kept,

Hath left me, and I desperate now approve

Desire is death, which physic did except.

Past cure I am, now Reason is past care,

And frantic-mad with evermore unrest;

My thoughts and my discourse as madmen\'s are,

At random from the truth vainly express\'d;

  For I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright,

  Who art as black as hell, as dark as night.

 	--William Shakespeare

Concentrated power has always been the enemy of liberty.
Ronald Reagan