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“The vast majority of them weren't guilty of anything. They were too passive and too ignorant. Their slavery was the result of passivity and ignorance, and passivity and ignorance again and again breeds slavery.”
― Boris Strugatsky, Hard to Be a God

“Years ago, when the medical community announced that self-righteous indignation can be an addiction, as severe as any drug abuse, I expected the public to take notice. Surely (I thought) the vast majority of moderate, reasonable people will now stop listening to those vehement wrath-junkies—the essers—out there, constantly spewing hate from pulpits of the left or right, or religious or paranoiac mania? Now that the pattern is understood, won’t this tend to disempower the irate, who refuse to negotiate, and instead empower those who want to engage in reason? To listen to their neighbors and work out pragmatic solutions to problems? Those who prefer positive-sum games. Won’t this now-verified scientific fact undermine the frantic types, who have ruined argument and discourse in public life, by portraying their opponents in stark terms of pure evil, opposed by pharisaical good? By showing that their fury arises out of an addictive chemical high that they secrete within their own skulls?”
― David Brin, Existence

“So be it, cuckoo!
Let us, you and I, compare
the flow of our tears,
for I, too, in this sad world
do little but lift my cry.”
― Anonymous, The Tale of the Heike

“So let this be the first and sacred law of friendship: seek only the good from friends, do only good for the sake of friends - and don't wait to be asked! Be always attentive! Banish hesitation! Be ready to give advice freely! Take seriously the good advice of friends. Be ready to offer it openly, even forcefully, if the occasion demands - and also be ready to follow when it's been offered.”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero, On the Good Life