As to conforming outwardly, and living your own life inwardly, I have not a very high opinion of that course.
This American government -- what is it but a tradition, though a recent one, endeavoring to transmit itself unimpaired to posterity, but each instant losing some of its integrity? It has not the vitality and force of a single living man; for a single man can bend it to his will.
Oh to reach the point of death and realize one has not lived at all.
I do not know how to distinguish between our waking life and a dream. Are we not always living the life that we imagine we are?