“Aerial bombing of those who have no chance to retaliate is not a war but an unequal exchange, which by its very nature accelerates the process through which war becomes a policing action and the adversary becomes a criminal or a mere object of violent reprisal. Policing action both begins and ends with the criminalization of the enemy. The overhead shot, coeval with air power itself, both produces and solidifies asymmetry and criminalization, which in turn produces a moral and legal justification of the violence.” – Nasser Hussain, “The Sound of Terror: Phenomenology of a Drone Strike”
“A post of influence and deep responsibilities is often no better than a bottomless gulf of confusion.” – Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote (trans. Starkie)
“Some bribe, importune, solicit, rise early, pray, insist, and yet at the end do not obtain what they desire, while another comes and without knowing why or wherefore finds himself spirited into a position of rank and authority that many others had sought in vain. There is indeed much truth in the saying that ‘Merit does much, but fortune more.’” – Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote (trans. Starkie)
“It is far better for the brave man to mount to the height of rashness than to sink into the depths of cowardice, for just as it is easier for the generous than for the miser to be prodigal, so it is easier for the daring than for the cowardly to become truly valiant.” – Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote (trans. Starkie)
“I am certain that amorality is the natural condition of the psyche, the unconscious—or of whatever name you give that mysterious wellspring. Our dreams are evidence enough for me. I can’t argue the case for freedom in art as persuasively as Freud did, or as Jung did, or as any of their heirs did and do. Psychic freedom is crucial to our sanity and to our humanity—so nothing differentiates an amoral piece of writing from one concerned with truth, justice and morals. A great work of art that can deliver Hell has a purifying effect. Why? Ask why.” – Diane Williams, “Now Find a Free Mind” (interview by Alec Niedenthal)
“The sentence is the site of your enterprise with words, the locale where language either comes to a head or does not. The sentence is a situation of words in the most literal sense: words must be situated in relation to others to produce an enduring effect on a reader. As you situate the words, you are of course intent on obeying the ordinances of syntax and grammar, unless any willful violation is your purpose—and you are intent as well on achieving in the arrangements of words as much fidelity as is possible to whatever you believe you have wanted to say or describe. A lot of writers—many of them—unfortunately seem to stop there. They seem content if the resultant sentence is free from obvious faults and is faithful to the lineaments of the thought or feeling or whatnot that was awaiting deathless expression. But some other writers seem to know that it takes more than that for a sentence to cohere and flourish as a work of art. They seem to know that the words inside the sentence must behave as if they were destined to belong together—as if their separation from each other would deprive the parent story or novel, as well as the readerly world, of something life-bearing and essential. These writers recognize that there needs to be an intimacy between the words, a togetherness that has nothing to do with grammar or syntax but instead has to do with the very shapes and sounds, the forms and contours, of the gathered words. This intimacy is what we mean when we say of a piece of writing that it has a felicity—a fitness, an aptness, a rightness about the phrasing. The words in the sentence must bear some physical and sonic resemblance to each other—the way people and their dogs are said to come to resemble each other, the way children take after their parents, the way pairs and groups of friends evolve their own manner of dress and gesture and speech. A pausing, enraptured reader should be able to look deeply into the sentence and discern among the words all of the traits and characteristics they share. The impression to be given is that the words in the sentence have lived with each other for quite some time, decisive time, and have deepened and grown and matured in each other’s company—and that they cannot live without each other.” – Gary Lutz, “The Sentence Is a Lonely Place” (emphasis in original)
“The coward’s heart
Fear-ridden will no joy of triumph know;
Unblest is he
That a bold front to Fortune does not show,
But yields his soul
And senses tamely to soft indolence.”
– Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote (trans. Starkie)
“Creative-writing classes are responsible for a lot of well-written fiction with very little to say, and a lot of reasonably vivid poetry capturing small moments with no larger resonance.” – Carol Iannone, “Creative-Writing Classes”
“Love in most young men is not love but lust, and as its ultimate end is pleasure, it ceases once that end has been attained; and what appears to be love must disappear because it cannot pass the limits assigned to it by nature, whereas true affection knows none such limitations.” – Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote (trans. Starkie)
“The profession of pimp is no ordinary office, but one requiring wisdom and most necessary in any well-governed state. None but wellborn persons should practice it. In fact, it should have its overseers and inspectors, as there are of other offices, limited to a certain appointed number, like exchange brokers.” – Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote (trans. Starkie)
“A sickly man is no less a creature of God than a healthy one.” – René Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy in Which the Existence of God and the Distinction of the Soul from the Body Are Demonstrated (trans. Cress)
“Nothing is more ancient than the truth.” – René Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy in Which the Existence of God and the Distinction of the Soul from the Body Are Demonstrated (trans. Cress)
“That practical matter whose proper establishment is of greatest importance for the common sufficiency of the citizens in this life, and whose poor establishment threatens harm for the community, must be established only by the whole body of the citizens. But such a matter is the law. Therefore, the establishment of the law pertains only to the whole body of the citizens.” – Marsilius dei Mainardi, The Defender of Peace (trans. Gewirth)
“Every citizen must be free, and not undergo another’s despotism, that is, slavish dominion. But this would not be the case if one or a few of the citizens by their own authority made the law over the whole body of citizens. For those who thus made the law would be despots over the others, and hence such a law, however good it was, would be endured only with reluctance, or not at all, by the rest of the citizens, the more ample part. Having suffered contempt, they would protest against it, and not having been called upon to make it, they would not observe it. On the other hand, a law made by the hearing or consent of the whole multitude, even though it were less useful, would be readily observed and endured by every one of the citizens, because each then would seem to have set the law upon himself, and hence would have no protest against it, but would rather tolerate it with equanimity.” – Marsilius dei Mainardi, The Defender of Peace (trans. Gewirth)
“That law is better observed by every citizen which each one seems to have imposed upon himself. But such is the law which is made through the hearing and command of the entire multitude of the citizens.” – Marsilius dei Mainardi, The Defender of Peace (trans. Gewirth)
“That at which the entire body of the citizens aims intellectually and emotionally is more certainly judged as to its truth and more diligently noted as to its common utility. For a defect in some proposed law can be better noted by the greater number than by any part thereof, since every whole, or at least every corporeal whole, is greater in mass and in virtue than any part of it taken separately. Moreover, the common utility of a law is better noted by the entire multitude, because no one knowingly harms himself. Anyone can look to see whether a proposed law leans toward the benefit of one or a few persons more than of the others or of the community, and can protest against it. Such, however, would not be the case were the law made by one or a few persons, considering their own private benefit rather than that of the community.” – Marsilius dei Mainardi, The Defender of Peace (trans. Gewirth)
“The legislator, or the primary and proper efficient cause of the law, is the people or the whole body of citizens, or the weightier part thereof, through its election or will expressed by words in the general assembly of the citizens, commanding or determining that something be done or omitted with regard to human civil acts, under a temporal pain or punishment. By the ‘weightier part’ I mean to take into consideration the quantity and the quality of the persons in the community over which the law is made. The aforesaid whole body of citizens or the weightier part thereof is the legislator regardless of whether it makes the law directly by itself or entrusts the making of it to some person or persons, who are not and cannot be the legislator in the absolute sense, but only in a relative sense and for a particular time and in accordance with the authority of the primary legislator.” – Marsilius dei Mainardi, The Defender of Peace (trans. Gewirth)
“No act is perfectly virtuous unless the will through that act wishes what is dictated by right reason just because it is dictated by right reason. For if the will should wish what is dictated by right reason, not because it is dictated, but because it is delightful, or because of something else, it would wish what is dictated merely upon its being shown, because of the apprehension, and without right reason. And consequently, that act would not be virtuous, because it would not be elicited in conformity with right reason: to wish what is dictated by right reason because of the fact that it is dictated. But now it is impossible that someone should wish something because of something else unless he wishes that other, since if he refuses or does not wish that other, he already wishes the something more because of itself than because of that other. Therefore, in order that I should virtuously wish what is dictated by right reason, I must necessarily wish right reason through the same act and not through another.” – William of Ockham, Commentary on the Sentences (trans. Walsh)
“If you say that that which does not exist is not the cause of everything, I say, that is false; but one must add that it does not exist, nor is it loved, nor desired. And then indeed it does follow that it is not a cause. But an end can be loved or desired now however much it does not exist. And hence it can be a final cause when it does not exist.” – William of Ockham, Seven Quodlibets (trans. Walsh)
“Man has a natural aptitude for virtue; but the perfection of virtue must be acquired by man by means of some kind of training. Thus we observe that a man is helped by diligence in his necessities, for instance, in food and clothing. Certain beginnings of these he has from nature, viz., his reason and his hands; but he has not the full complement, as other animals have, to whom nature has given sufficiently of clothing and food. Now it is difficult to see how man could suffice for himself in the matter of this training, since the perfection of virtue consists chiefly in withdrawing man from undue pleasures, to which above all man is inclined, and especially the young, who are more capable of being trained. Consequently a man needs to receive this training from another, whereby to arrive at the perfection of virtue. And as to those young people who are inclined to acts of virtue by their good natural disposition, or by custom, or rather by the gift of God, paternal training suffices, which is by admonitions. But since some are found to be dissolute and prone to vice, and not easily amenable to words, it was necessary for such to be restrained from evil by force and fear, in order that, at least, they might desist from evil-doing, and leave others in peace, and that they themselves, by being habituated in this way, might be brought to do willingly what hitherto they did from fear, and thus become virtuous. Now this kind of training, which compels through fear of punishment, is the discipline of laws.” – Thomas Aquinas, The Summa Theologica, First Part of the Second Part (trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province)
“Sometimes the medicine is too bitter, and all the sugar in the bowl is not going to sweeten it. You’ve got to hold your nose and drink it up.” – Averil Dean, Alice Close Your Eyes
“Perhaps not everyone who hears this name God understands it to signify something than which nothing greater can be thought, seeing that some have believed God to be a body. Yet, granted that everyone understands that by this name God is signified something than which nothing greater can be thought, nevertheless, it does not therefore follow that he understands that what the name signifies exists actually, but only that it exists mentally. Nor can it be argued that it actually exists, unless it be admitted that there actually exists something than which nothing greater can be thought; and this precisely is not admitted by those who hold that God does not exist.” – Thomas Aquinas, The Summa Theologica, Part One (ed. Pegis; emphases in original)
“It would clearly be desirable if the only actions performed were those in which what was gained was worth more than what was lost. But in choosing between social arrangements within the context of which individual decisions are made, we have to bear in mind that a change in the existing system which will lead to an improvement in some decisions may well lead to a worsening of others. Furthermore we have to take into account the costs involved in operating the various social arrangements (whether it be the working of a market or a government department), as well as the costs involved in moving to a new system. In devising and choosing between social arrangements we should have regard for the total effect.” – R. H. Coase, “The Problem of Social Cost”