Ademption

“To wrong those we hate is to add fuel to our hatred. Conversely, to treat an enemy with magnanimity is to blunt our hatred for him. 71”
― Eric Hoffer, The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements

“When people ask why I go on my travels I usually reply that I know what I am escaping from but not what I am looking for. If they tell me that there may be just as little soundness among foreigners and that their morals may be no better than ours, I reply: first that would not be easy: Our wickedness has assumed many faces. Secondly, there is always gain in changing a bad condition for an uncertain one, and that the ills of others do not need to sting us as our own do.”
― Michel de Montaigne, The Complete Essays

“Now laws remain respected not because they are just but because they are laws. That is the mystical basis of their authority. They have no other. It serves them well, too. Laws are often made by fools, and even more often by men who fail in equity because they hate equality: but always by men, vain authorities who can resolve nothing. No person commits crimes more grossly, widely or regularly than our laws. If anyone obeys them only when they are just, then he fails to obey them for just the reason he must!”
― Michel de Montaigne, The Complete Essays

“Those who believe without reason cannot be convinced by reason.”
― James Randi