Holy

Some people like nothing better than to do a mean thing for a holy reason.
--Robertson Davies

Moral Law

If an individual takes a lenient view of the moral law, he may well have a high opinion of himself and be conceited, because he judges himself by a false standard.
--Immanuel Kant

The Artist

Humility is not a virtue propitious to the artist. It is often pride, emulation, avarice, malice--all the odious qualities--which drive a man to complete, elaborate, refine, destroy, renew his work until he has made something that gratifies his pride and envy and greed. And in doing so he enriches the world more than the generous and good, though he may lose his own soul in the process. This is the paradox of artistic achievement.
--Evelyn Waugh

None

Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none.
--William Shakespeare

Forces

There are certain forces within our own national community, composed of men who call themselves American but who would destroy America. They are the forces of dictatorship in our land.
--Franklin D. Roosevelt (November 2, 1940)

I Am

I am a cage, in search of a bird.
--Franz Kafka

Mediocre

There are a lot of mediocre judges and people and lawyers. They are entitled to a little representation, aren't they?
--Senator Roman Hruska (1970, R-Nebraska)

Crushed

The price that we pay
When evil walks the planet
And love is crushed like clay
The master races, the chosen people
The burning temple, the weeping cathedrals
--Paul Simon

Perversion

Trump is a horrible person. Sessions is a horrible person. But, Sessions stands between Trump and Mueller. So, in this opera of demons, Sessions is the one you root for. It's all perversion. Welcome to 2018.
--Charles M. Blow

Hopeful

To be hopeful means to be uncertain about the future, to be tender toward possibilities, to be dedicated to change all the way down to the bottom of your heart.
--Rebecca Solnit

Cannot Accept

If the human race as a whole is to survive, the world must find the way by which men and nations can live together in peace. We cannot accept the doctrine that war must be forever a part of man's destiny.
--Franklin D. Roosevelt (November 2, 1940)

Cure

The cure for loneliness is solitude.
--Marianne Moore

Imagining

There's a psychological mechanism, I've come to believe, that prevents most of us from imagining the moment of our own death. For if it were possible to imagine fully that instant of passing from consciousness to nonexistence, with all the attendant fear and humiliation of absolute helplessness, it would be very hard to live.
--Aleksandar Hemon

Indifferent

Mankind are an incorrigible race. Give them but bugbears and idols--it is all that they ask; the distinctions of right and wrong, of truth and falsehood, of good and evil, are worse than indifferent to them.
--William Hazlitt (1823)

The Stories

The stars we are given. The constellations we make. That is to say, stars exist in the cosmos, but constellations are the imaginary lines we draw between them, the readings we give the sky, the stories we tell.
--Rebecca Solnit

Politics

Working with demagogues and autocrats is like working with cancer. You fight it. You cut it out. These aren't political differences, it's deciding if we're going to have politics at all.
--Garry Kasparov