“Men must learn now with pity to dispense; For policy sits above conscience.”

“We must sit by these rivers, not under or in them, but above, not standing upright, but sitting down, so that we remain humble by sitting, and safe by remaining above.”

“By definition, a government has no conscience. Sometimes it has a policy, but nothing more.”

“That is the challenge Companion. To take what has happened to you and learn from it. Nothing is quite so destructive as pity, especially self-pity. No event in life is so terrible that one cannot rise above it.”

“Ah, children, pity level-crossing keepers, pity lock-keepers – pity lighthouse-keepers – pity all the keepers of this world (pity even school teachers), caught between their conscience and the bleak horizon…”

“Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resigns his conscience to the legislator? Why has every man a conscience then? I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward.”