Deep Spirits

Talking with a friend about John Steinbeck got me to thinking of particular parts of certain books that I love. Add yours, any book, any author. Below is quite possibly my favorite couple of paragraphs from anything I've ever read.

John Steinbeck -- East of Eden

"Our species...has only one creative instrument, the individual mind and spirit of man. Nothing was ever created by two men. There are no good collaborations, whether in music, in art, in poetry, in mathematics, in philosophy. Once the miracle of creation has taken place, the group can build and extend it, but the group never invents anything. The preciousness lies in the lonely mind of a man.

And this I believe: that the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world. And this I would fight for: the freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected. And this I must fight against: any idea, religion, or government which limits or destroys the individual. This is what i am and what i am about. I can see why a system built on a pattern must try to destroy the free mind, for that is one thing which can by inspection destroy such a system. Surely I can understand this, and I hate it and I will fight against it to preserve the one thing that separates us from the uncreative beasts. If the glory can be killed, we are lost."

Very good topic, Daywhite. I was wondering what could be my favorite quote. Then I realized that after so many books and remembered and after that forgotten quotes, how to remember the one that expresses that what touches the deepest part of my being.
Then, it happens today (synchronicity at work), that I came to Paul Watson's book "Seal Wars". I cannot say that this book belongs to one of my favorite, although I love it as I am a huge admirer of him and of the idea he stands for. But, that what he said at the end of that book absolutely corresponds to that what I have always stood for and I do the same today and I realize that this quote expresses many other realizations I have had in a different way from other books read before.
I posted it under another topic in Civil Courage. http://www.deepspirits.com/exploration/sea-shepherd-and-paul-watson-p4750.html#p4750
But here it is for this topic too.

From "Seal Wars" by Paul Watson

"When I first took up the challenge of fighting the seal hunt, I was twenty-four and full of optimism that we could shut it down and bring an end to the killing. Now, at fifty-one, I am beginning to accept that the killing will most likely not end in my lifetime. The masacre of the seals had been renewed with a vengeance. The slaughter of the whales has escalated. Fish populations are crashing worldwide. It is the revelation of my own helplessness that hurts me now. What difference did it all make? Perhaps, I should have just become like the peole I've been fighting all my life- the uncaring, materialistic, what's-in-it-for-me types.
But then, closing my eyes, I hear the words I heard in a vision so many years before:" You do what you must because it is the only thing you can do. It is the right thing to do, the just thing to do. You are a warrior for the Earth. You will live the life of a warrior and you will die a warrior's death"
This cause is bigger and more important than any of its participants. It is in fact an epic struggle - a clasic clash between right and wrong, between good and evil. It is a crusade to defend kotik, the Lamb of God.
And thus I have been a shepherd, and I have tried to be a good shepherd and to defend as many of my flock as I can".
Page 236

From: The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien
[A book written by a foot-soldier about the Viet Nam war]

They carried all the emotional baggage of men would might die. Grief, terror, love, longing - these were intangibles, but the intangibles had their own weight. They carried shameful memories. They carried the common secret of cowardice barely restrained, the instinct to run or freeze or hide, and in many respects this was the heaviest burden of all, for it could never be put down, it required perfect balance and perfect posture. They carried their reputations. They carried the soldier's greatest fear, which was the fear of blushing. Men killed, and died, because they were embarrassed no to. It was what brought them to the war in the first place, nothing positive, no dreams of glory or honor, just to avoid the blush of dishonor. They died so as not to die of embarrassment.

Page 1 -
Our age is retrospective. It builds on the sepulchres [tombs] of our fathers....The foregoing generations beheld God and nature face to face; we, through their [our forefathers] eyes. Why should we not enjoy an original relation to the universe? Why should not we have a poetry and philosophy of insight and not of tradition, and a religion by revelation to us, and not the history of theirs?....Why should we grope among the dry bones of the past, or put the living generation into masquerade out of its faded wardrobe? The sun shines today also. Let us demand our own works and laws and worship.