Luke

“After such knowledge, what forgiveness? Think now
History has many cunning passages, contrived corridors
And issues, deceives with whispering ambitions,
Guides us by vanities. Think now
She gives when our attention is distracted
And what she gives, gives with such supple confusions
That the giving famishes the craving. Gives too late
What’s not believed in, or is still believed,
In memory only, reconsidered passion. Gives too soon
Into weak hands, what’s thought can be dispensed with
Till the refusal propagates a fear. Think
Neither fear nor courage saves us. Unnatural vices
Are fathered by our heroism. Virtues
Are forced upon us by our impudent crimes.
These tears are shaken from the wrath-bearing tree.”
― TS Eliot

“We had been told, on leaving our native soil, that we were going to defend the sacred rights conferred on us by so many of our citizens settled overseas, so many years of our presence, so many benefits brought by us to populations in need of our assistance and our civilization. We were able to verify that all this was true, and, because it was true, we did not hesitate to shed our quota of blood, to sacrifice our youth and our hopes. We regretted nothing, but whereas we over here are inspired by this frame of mind, I am told that in Rome factions and conspiracies are rife, that treachery flourishes, and that many people in their uncertainty and confusion lend a ready ear to the dire temptations of relinquishment and vilify our action. I cannot believe that all this is true and yet recent wars have shown how pernicious such a state of mind could be and to where it could lead. Make haste to reassure me, I beg you, and tell me that our fellow-citizens understand us, support us and protect us as we ourselves are protecting the glory of the Empire. If it should be otherwise, if we should have to leave our bleached bones on these desert sands in vain, then beware of the anger of the Legions! MARCUS FLAVINUS, CENTURION IN THE 2ND COHORT OF THE AUGUSTA LEGION, TO HIS COUSIN TERTULLUS IN ROME”
― Jean Lartéguy, The Centurions

“Force should be right; or rather, right and wrong,
between whose endless jar justice resides,
should lose their names, and so should justice too.
Then everything includes itself in power,
power into will, will into appetite;
and appetite, an universal wolf,
so doubly seconded with will and power, must make perforce an universal prey
and at last eat up himself.”
― William Shakespeare

“The last time Holbrooke saw Blythe was in the fall of 1980, when he was in New York to finalize the divorce and to reaffirm the American vote for the Khmer Rouge seat at the United Nations. "Pol Pot, Dick?" Blythe said after they signed the papers. "How could you?”
― George Packer, Our Man: Richard Holbrooke and the End of the American Century