Almost all of our relationships begin and most of them continue as forms of mutual exploitation, a mental or physical barter, to be terminated when one or both parties run out of goods.
Conflictis the gadfly of thought. It stirs us to observation and memory. Itinstigates to invention. It shocks us out of sheeplikepassivity, and sets us at noting and contriving.
Changemeans movement. Movement means friction. Only in the frictionless vacuum of anonexistent abstract world can movement or change occur without that abrasivefriction of conflict.
Never[enter] into dispute or argument with another. I never yet saw an instance ofone of two disputants convincing the other by argument. I have seen many ontheir getting warm, becoming rude and shooting one another.
