“The great owners, striking at the immediate thing, the expanding government, the growing labor unity; striking at new taxes, at plans; not knowing these things are results, not causes.  Results, not causes; results, not causes.  The causes lie deep and simple – the causes are a hunger in a stomach, multiplied a million times; a hunger in a single soul, hunger for joy and some security, multiplied a million times; muscles and mind aching to grow, to work, to create, multiplied a million times.  The last clear definite function of a man – muscles aching to work, minds aching to create beyond the single need – this is man.

This you may say of man – when theories change and crash, when schools, philosophies, when narrow dark alleys of thought, national, religious, economic, grow and disintegrate, man reaches, stumbles forward, painfully, mistakenly sometimes.  Having stepped forward, he  may slip back, but only half a step, never the full step back.”

John Steinbeck – The Grapes of Wrath, chapter 14.