"The terrible thing about our time is precisely the ease with which theories can be put into practice. The more perfect, the more idealistic the theories, the more dreadful is their realization. We are at last beginning to rediscover
what perhaps men knew better in very ancient times,
in primitive times
before utopias were thought of:
that liberty is bound up with imperfection,
and that limitations, imperfections, errors
are not only unavoidable but also salutary.
The best is not the ideal.
Where what is theoretically best is imposed
on everyone as the norm,
then there is no longer any room even to be good.
The best, imposed as a norm, becomes evil.”
Trappist monk, Father Thomas Merton
