like bread; to eat it off biscuits is like eating it off slates.
I asked him if, when he said his prayers, he was so supercilious
as to pray for his daily biscuits. He gave me generally to
understand that he was only obeying a custom of Modern Society.
I have therefore resolved to raise my voice, not against the waiter,
but against Modern Society, for this huge and unparalleled modern wrong.




The Red Town

When a man says that democracy is false because most people are stupid,
there are several courses which the philosopher may pursue.
The most obvious is to hit him smartly and with precision on the exact
tip of the nose. But if you have scruples (moral or physical)
about this course, you may proceed to employ Reason, which in this
case has all the savage solidity of a blow with the fist.
It is stupid to say that "most people" are stupid. It is like
saying "most people are tall," when it is obvious that "tall"
can only mean taller than most people. It is absurd to denounce
the majority of mankind as below the average of mankind.

Should the man have been hammered on the nose and brained with logic,
and should he still remain cold, a third course opens: lead him
by the hand (himself half-willing) towards some sunlit and yet secret
meadow and ask him who made the names of the common wild flowers.
They were ordinary people, so far as any one knows, who gave
to one flower the name of the Star of Bethlehem and to another
and much commoner flower the tremendous title of the Eye of Day.