All courses of action are risky, so prudence is not in avoiding danger (it’s impossible), but calculating risk and acting decisively. Make mistakes of ambition and not mistakes of sloth. Develop the strength to do bold things, not the strength to suffer.
Niccolò Machiavelli
I have had such a sickening of men in masses, and of causes, that I would not cross this room to reform parliament or prevent the union or to bring about the millennium. I speak only for myself, mind – it is my own truth alone – but man as part of a movement or a crowd is indifferent to me. He is inhuman. And I have nothing to do with nations, or nationalism. The only feelings I have – for what they are – are for men as individuals; my loyalties, such as they may be, are to private persons alone.
Faithless is he that says farewell when the road darkens.
The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater.
Every counterfeit god a heart can choose- whether love, money, success, or power- has a powerful biblical narrative that explains how that particular kind of idolatry works itself out in our lives.
Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art…. It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things which give value to survival.
Until the millennium arrives and countries cease trying to enslave others, it will be necessary to accept one’s responsibilities and be willing to make sacrifices for one’s country – as my comrades did. As the troops used to say, “If the country is good enough to live in, it’s good enough to fight for.” With privilege goes responsibility.
The wide world is all about you: you can fence yourselves in, but you cannot for ever fence it out.
Courage is being the only only one who knows how terrified you are.
Acerbity [əˈsɜːbɪtɪ] 