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Attending there let us absorb the cultures of nations
And dissolve into our judgement all their codes.
Then, being clogged with a natural hesitation
(People are continually asking one the way out),
Let us stand here and admit that we have no road.
--
"Homage to the British Museum" (1932), line 8; cited from John Haffenden (ed.) The Complete Poems (London: Allen Lane, 2000) p. 55.

 

William Empson

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I must admit that I have gone through those moments when I was greatly disappointed with the church and what it has done in this period of social change. We must face the fact that in America, the church is still the most segregated major institution in America. At 11:00 on Sunday morning when we stand and sing and Christ has no east or west, we stand at the most segregated hour in this nation. This is tragic. Nobody of honesty can overlook this. Now, I'm sure that if the church had taken a stronger stand all along, we wouldn't have many of the problems that we have. The first way that the church can repent, the first way that it can move out into the arena of social reform is to remove the yoke of segregation from its own body. Now, I'm not saying that society must sit down and wait on a spiritual and moribund church as we've so often seen. I think it should have started in the church, but since it didn't start in the church, our society needed to move on. The church, itself, will stand under the judgement of God. Now that the mistake of the past has been made, I think that the opportunity of the future is to really go out and to transform American society, and where else is there a better place than in the institution that should serve as the moral guardian of the community. The institution that should preach brotherhood and make it a reality within its own body.

 

Martin Luther King

 

An honest curator will admit that judgement is fallible, especially for art made yesterday.

 

Nicholas Serota

 

“You have to admit, half the people who work here are mildly autistic; poor social skills, the ability to obsess on anything numerical or repetitive, the odd outfits, the paranoia and the sense of continually being judged and measured.”

 

Douglas Coupland

 

The Kahal is the organization of the Jewish nation. It is the result of the Talmudic dogma of Chosen People, the doctrine under which the Jews should not merge with other nations, because God has promised them to have all the earth and to rule the world... The Kahal organization is mysterious which, wrapped in the innocuous appearance of religious communities, made possible the preservation of the Jewish people, amid strong nations which he broke, or is on the road to destroy.

 

Nicolae Paulescu

 

All mankind lives and each man strives by codes of conduct mutually agreed. Perhaps these codes are good, perhaps they're bad, it's only evident they're codes. Mores bind the race. Co-action then occurs. Thought and motion in accord. A oneness then of purpose and survival so results. But now against that code there is transgression. And so because the code was held, whatever code it was, and man sought comfort in man's company, he held back his deed and so entered then the bourne in which no being laughs or has a freedom in his heart.

 

L. Ron Hubbard