Time Of Disturbance

The best is, in war or faction or ordinary vindictive

    life, not to take sides.

Leave it for children, and the emotional rabble of the

    streets, to back their horse or support a brawler.

But if you are forced into it: remember that good and

    evil are as common as air, and like air shared

By the panting belligerents; the moral indignation that

    hoarsens orators is mostly a fool.

Hold your nose and compromise; keep a cold mind. Fight,

    if needs must; hate no one. Do as God does,

Or the tragic poets: they crush their man without hating

    him, their Lear or Hitler, and often save without

    love.

As for these quarrels, they are like the moon, recurrent

    and fantastic. They have their beauty but night's

    is better.

It is better to be silent than make a noise. It is better

    to strike dead than strike often. It is better not

    to strike.