Fatima

“every generation, by virtue of being born into a historical continuum. is burdened by the sins of the fathers as it is blessed with the deeds of the ancestors. But this kind of responsibility is not what we are talking about here; it is not personal, and only in a metaphorical sense can one say he feels guilty for what not he but his father or his people have done.”
― Hannah Arendt

“All his feelings and all his being were shaken to their depths, and he came to know that terrible torment which, by way of a striking exception, sometimes occurs in nature, when a weak talent strains to show itself on too grand a scale and fails; that torment which gives birth to great things in a youth, but, in passing beyond the border of dream, turns into a fruitless yearning; that dreadful torment which makes a man capable of terrible evildoing. A terrible envy possessed him, an envy bordering on rage. The bile rose in him when he saw some work that bore the stamp of talent. He ground his teeth and devoured it with the eyes of a basilisk.”
― Nikolai Gogol, The Mysterious Portrait

“For politics is not like the nursery; in politics obedience and support are the same.”
― Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil

“He has no intention of being misled by her. On the contrary, he laughs to himself that he's deceiving her.”
― Jun'ichirō Tanizaki, Naomi