Sublime

“I’ve got a list of personality traits written down here that define psychopathy,” I said, pointing at my pocket. “Who the hell are the people who make the list?” said Al. “What are their names? I bet I never heard of them!”

George Leonidas Leslie, the greatest burglar of the nineteenth century, poses a fundamental, perhaps existential, threat to the urban social contract. He implies that none of us understand how buildings really work—how the city operates—and, worse, that someone else out there has a better idea and is fully prepared to use that knowledge against us.

He may even go mad; but he is going mad for the love of sanity. But the modern student of ethics, even if he remains sane, remains sane from an insane dread of insanity.

Homem de ciência, e só de ciência, nada o consternava fora da ciência; e se alguma coisa o preocupava naquela ocasião, se ele deixava correr pela multidão um olhar inquieto e policial, não era outra coisa mais do que a ideia de que algum demente podia achar-se ali misturado com a gente de juízo.