Excerpt from a speech on being honoured by the government for donation of an ambulance

Historically, man’s ability to endanger his own existence far exceeds his efforts to preserve it.

His inconveniences, hardships, problems, ailments – his situation generally of being precariously fragile, far outstrips the solutions and remedial measures that are inherently available from his own social order, or are made available to him by the philanthropy of some and the enterprise of others.

Our problems of food, shelter, medicine and social adjustment are growing incredibly faster than the ability of any well-intentioned search to find solutions and provide relief.

For myself, premature aging has brought cataracts, not only to my eyes, but also to my brain, and I can’t see faith or feel hope.

I can see, however, that what is needed here most is not just eyes, but vision.

…


Note: Personally, I hold that altruism is, like conscience and the soul, only a notion that human beings have created for their own comfort. No other species is blessed or cursed with these ideals; in reality, they do not exist at all. My own charity, like that of others, it follows, is motivated by weakness, fear, insecurity, and self-deceit.