A Quote by Wilfred Bion
Of all evil things the least quantity is to be borne, but of learning and knowledge, the more a man hath, the better he can bear it.
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A man is saved no faster than he gets knowledge. For if he does not get knowledge, he will be brought into captivity by some evil power in the other world, as evil spirits will have more knowledge, and consequently more power.
To inquisitive minds like yours and mine the reflection that the quantity of human knowledge bears no proportion to the quantity of human ignorance must be in one view rather pleasing, viz., that though we are to live forever we may be continually amused and delighted with learning something new.
God hath not revealed anything to Joseph, but what he will make known unto the Twelve, and even the least Saint may know all things as fast as he is able to bear them.
If we would talk less and pray more about them, things would be better than they are in the world: at least, we should be better enabled to bear them.
If a man were to place himself in an attitude to bear manfully the greatest evil that can be inflicted on him, he would find suddenly that there was no such evil to bear; his brave back would go a-begging.
To deny the possibility, nay, the actual existence of witchcraft and sorcery, is at once flatly to contradict the revealed word of God in various passages both of the Old and New Testament, and the thing itself is a Truth to which every nation in the world hath, in its turn, borne testimony, by either example seemingly well attested or by prohibitory laws, which at least suppose the possibility of a commerce with evil spirits.
Good is positive. Evil is merely privative, not absolute: it is like cold, which is the privation of heat. All evil is so much death or nonentity. Benevolence is absolute and real. So much benevolence as a man hath, so much life hath he.
This man, lady, hath robb'd many beasts of their particular additions: he is as valiant as a lion, churlish as the bear, slow as the elephant-a man into whom nature hath so crowded humours that his valour is crush'd into folly, his folly sauced with discretion.
There are times when quantity is at least as important as quality in learning an art.
By the cross we, too, are crucified with Christ; but alive in Christ. We are no more rebels, but servants; no more servants, but sons! "Let it be counted folly," says Hooker, "or fury, or frenzy, or whatever else; it is our wisdom and our comfort. We care for no knowledge in the world but this, that man hath sinned, and that God hath suffered; that God has made Himself the Son of Man, and that men are made the righteousness of God."
The only effect of public punishment is to show the rabble how bravely it can be borne; and that every one who hath lost a toe-nail hath suffered worse.
Knowledge about yourself binds, weighs, ties you down; there is no freedom to move, and you act and move within the limits of thatknowledge. Learning about yourself is never the same as accumulating knowledge about yourself. Learning is active present and knowledge is the past; if you are learning to accumulate, it ceases to be learning; knowledge is static, more can be added to it or taken away from it, but learning is active, nothing can be added or taken away from it for there is no accumulation at any time.
Life is short; this being so, who would pursue great things and not bear with what is at hand? These are the ways of madmen and men of evil counsel, at least in my judgment.
There is no evil to be faced that Christ does not face with us. There is no enemy that Christ has not already conquered. There is no cross to bear that Christ has not already borne for us, and does not now bear with us.
To then say that our own actions in combating evil have led to evil, is nothing more than saying, "Islamic terrorists are somewhat justified, at least we can understand why they hate us because we've done things to make them hate us. ... We have been evil ourselves, and we are evil and that justifies them being evil."
But it seems an irony of creation that man's mind knows how to handle things the better the farther removed they are from the center of his existence. Thus we are cleverest where knowledge matters least.
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