Our Lady of the Exquisite Cotard

"Economic conditions may deeply effect the jobs and the jobholders, but they make little impression upon the enthusiasts. The latter must not be denied the primary needs of life, they must live, but as soon as those needs are satisfied in the humblest manner, the real enthusiasts bother about nothing but their work or their mission.

It is really the jobholders who keep things going with enough continuity and smoothness; they are the builders of usages and customs, the defenders of morality and justice. It is they who do all the routine work without which everything would soon degenerate into chaos, yet, by and large it is the enthusiasts who are the poets, the artists, the saints, the men of science, the inventors, the discoverers. They are the main instruments of change and progress; they are the real creators and troublemakers. The enthusiasts are the salt of the earth, but man cannot live by salt alone."

Dr. George Sarton, The History of Science
(Entire quote; bottom of home pg)