“And if at any time it should fall, I will raise and carry the banner of hopelessness and lead its war.”

“...taxes are not raised to carry on wars, but that wars are raised to carry on taxes”

“May I at least carry, to the boundless possibility contained in the abyss of everything, the glory of my disillusion like that of a great dream, and the splendor of not believing like a banner of defeat; a banner in feeble hands, but still and all a banner, dragged through mud and the blood of the weak but raised high for who knows what reason - whether in defiance, or as a challenge, or in mere desperation - as we vanish into quicksand. No one knows for what reason, because no one knows anything, and the sand swallows those with banners as it swallows those without. And the sand covers everything: my life, my prose, my eternity. I carry my awareness of defeat like a banner of victory.”

“I carry my awareness of defeat like a banner of victory.”

“The truth will make us free, Charmian. The best we can do is carry the banner proudly in our own time.”

“The human race is a race of cowards; and I am not only marching in that procession but carrying a banner.”