Cera

“If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”
― Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago 1918–1956

“In effect, what is a courtier? He is a man whom the misfortune of kings and people has placed betwixt the sovereign and truth to conceal it from his eyes.”
― Jean le Rond d'Alembert, Miscellaneous pieces in literature, history, and philosophy. By Mr. d'Alembert ... Translated from the French

“And however much the princess was assured that in our time young people themselves must settle their fate, she was unable to believe it, as she would have been unable to believe that in anyone's time the best toys for five-year-old children would be loaded pistols.”
― Tolstoy, Leo, Anna Karenina