from "the magnificent defeat"...

instead of everything standing still and sure, suddenly nothing is standing still, and everything is unsure. something new and shattering is breaking through into something old. something is trying to be born. and if the new thing is going to be born, then the old thing is going to have to give way, and there is agony in the process as well as joy, just as there is agony in the womb as it labors and contracts to bring forth new life. ... (but) we try to fend off this world we yearn for where men live as brothers because there is something in each of us that wants to live not for his brother but for himself. we fend it off because we know in our terrible wisdom that the price we must pay for it is death, the death of self and all the values of self, the death that must take place before the life can come.