There is in all things a pattern that is part of our universe. It has symmetry, elegance, and grace -- those qualities you find always in that which the true artist captures.

You can find it in the turning of the seasons, in the way sand trails along a ridge, in the branch clusters of the creosote bush or the pattern of its leaves.

We try to copy these patterns in our lives and our society, seeking the rhythms, the dances, the forms that comfort. Yet it is possible to see peril in the finding of ultimate perfection.

It is clear that the ultimate pattern contains its own fixity. In such perfection, all things move toward death.

Any road followed precisely to its end leads precisely nowhere.

Climb the mountain just a little bit to test that it's a mountain.

From the top of the mountain, you cannot see the mountain.

Control the coinage and the courts -- let the rabble have the rest.

There is truth in these words, but I ask myself: "Who are the rabble and who are the ruled?"