The ongoing ethnic and political miseries of parts of Europe and the Middle East sometimes go back as far as the Roman Empire.  This is not something that can be attributed to the combativeness of "human nature", per se.  Before the expansion of early empires the occasional strife of tribes and natural nations was almost familial. With the rise of the State, the scale of the destructiveness and malevolence of warfare makes a huge leap."

- Gary Snyder in
The Practice of the Wild

"If the bible is universally diffused in Hindustan, what must be the astonishment of the natives to find that we are forbidden to rob, murder and steal; we who in fifty years, have extended our empire...over the whole peninsula...and exemplified in our public conduct every crime of which human nature is capable.  What matchless impudence to follow up such practice with such precepts! If we have common prudence, let us keep the gospel at home, and tell them that Machiavelli is our prophet, and the god of the Manicheans our god."

Reverend Sydney Smith - (English clergyman: 1771 - 1845

I want to know what sustains you from the inside when else falls away.

Orih Mountain Dreamer~

Passing T'ien-Men Street in Ch'ang-an and Seeing a Distant View of Chung-Nan Mountain -

 

 

The snow has gone from Chung-nan; spring is almost come.
Lovely in the distance its blue colors, against the brown of the streets.
A thousand coaches, ten thousand horsemen pass down the Nine Roads;
Turns his head and looks at the mountains,--not one man!

Po Ch�-i (772-846)