Lipton’s Journal/January 20, 1955/212

Homeostasis may be true of speech. It is possible that we say the best thing we are capable of saying at the moment given divergent desires. It is probable that we always do the best thing we are capable of doing at the moment, kill in order not to commit suicide, commit suicide in order not to kill—the best thing we are capable of doing involves the true and false judgment of the psyche, the judgment of the should and the judgment of society, so that in a curious way the murderer is closer to his soul than the suicide, for what the soul must always say is “Do the thing which will enable you to continue living.”