Commonplace Book

'Now, and it may be for another generation or fifty years, the old savage morality and the old forces of greed and possession and violence are trying to kill the new morality and the new idea of brotherhood and equality. Do not let us delude ourselves; the old forces still have the power; they are not any longer dressed up as kings and barons with gold on their necks and swords in their hands; they are dressed respectably, and their gold is in banks, and they pay other people to do the killing. And because, deep down, they have no faith in the future, and instead of loving mankind they despise and distrust it, they are becoming more and more vile and brutal. For cruelty is always caused by fear, and grows with it. More and more desperately they are trying to kill the idea of equality and love and freedom, more and more violently and forcibly they are trying to crush it out of the minds and spirits of men and women and children...'

from Naomi Mitchison's Vienna Diary (March 23rd)