My friend, be not like him who sits by his fireside and watches the fire go out, then blows vainly upon the dead ashes. Do not give up hope or yield to despair because of that which is past, for to bewail the irretrievable is the worst of human frailties.
It cannot in the opinion of His Majesty's Government be classified as slavery in the extreme acceptance of the word without some risk of terminological inexactitude.
When the world goes mad, one must accept madness as sanity; since sanity is, in the last analysis, nothing but the madness on which the whole world happens to agree.
Buddha's doctrine: Man suffers because of his craving to possess and keep forever things which are essentially impermanent...this frustration of the desire to possess is the immediate cause of suffering.
Acceptance is supposed to be a good thing - Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. Also compromise, as every couples therapist will tell you. But the cost was high - the damping of expectation, the dwindling of spirit, the resignation that comes to replace enthusiasm, the cynicism that supplants hope. The mouldering that goes unnoticed and unchecked.
The Freemen have 987 levels of membership, the first three of which are achieved merely by filling out an application. The 8th level is granted upon full acceptance into the local lodge, the 13th following Initiation, the 21st at the end of the Initiate's second week, and the 89th the first time he brings snacks.