 What lesson couldn't be gleaned from this story?
In the ensuing contretemps they emptied his rear pants pockets, got his wristwatch and restored the contents of the handkerchief pocket. It was this rather than skill that enabled the police to maintain such a tight surveillance on him, a surveillance that went to the extent of getting his fingerprints off the postman's bag, and which photographed, X-rayed and chemically analyzed the contents of his pockets before returning them. Lanfierre's job was to ferret out aberration. Conformity had become more than a social force; it was a physical necessity. He came to see that genuine quirks were rare and, as time went on, due partly to his own small efforts, rarer. He had even contrived to engage him in conversation once, a pleasantly absurd, irrational little chat that titillated him for weeks. After years of searching for differences Lanfierre had seen how extraordinarily repetitious people were, echoes really, dimly resounding echoes, each believing itself whole and separate. "It's like this, MacBride. And if there was a house sitting on such a mountain and if winds did blow, it would shake exactly the way that one does. "You're starting to see flying houses, hear loud babbling voices. You've got winds in your brain, Lanfierre, breezes of fatigue, zephyrs of irrationality—" At that moment, all at once, every last window in the house slammed shut. MacBride and Lanfierre both leaned forward, as if waiting for the ghostly babble of voices to commence. It rocked from side to side, it pitched forward and back, it yawed and dipped and twisted, straining at the mooring of its foundation. The house could have been preparing to take off and sail down the.... It expressed his weariness and distaste for people who went off and got neurotic when they could be enjoying a happy, normal existence. Or, as Fownes hoped it might appear, the illusion of the domed city vanished and was replaced by a more satisfactory, and, for his specific purpose, more functional, illusion. The sun and moon both looked down upon a garden that was itself scintillant, composed largely of neon roses. Seduction seemed to be an incredibly long and drawn-out process, accompanied by a considerable amount of falsification. It could mean yes, it could mean ask me again later on this evening. Undiminished, the yellow moon and the red sun continued to be brilliant, although the sun occasionally arced over and demolished several of the neon roses. The moon fell on the garden and rolled ponderously along, crooning When the Blue of the Night Meets the Gold of the Day .
 history tends to repeat itself
 no matter how much you strive for perfection, there will always be something preventing it  work on your dreams until they become a reality  history tends to repeat itself  love can accomplish many things