The conservative ethos
Quote of the day:
"Our greatest triumph is usually not doing, keeping things in balance, refraining from the act we can't redeem."
-- Sam Tanenhaus, Literature Unbound, 1986
This is at the core of the conservative ethos. (Note he said "usually"!) Such wisdom, or at least the ability to express it, is often not obtained until middle age or later. So it's interesting that Tanenhaus, now editor of the New York Times Book Review and Week in Review sections, published this when he was 31.
