Maximilian

“It is possible to conceive of a society blessed with so great a consciousness of its own power as to indulge in the most aristocratic luxury of letting its wrong-doers go scot-free.— “What do my parasites matter to me?” might society say. “Let them live and flourish! I am strong enough for it.” — The justice which began with the maxim, “Everything can be paid off, everything must be paid off,” ends with connivance at the escape of those who cannot pay to escape — it ends, like every good thing on earth, by destroying itself. — The self-destruction of Justice! we know the pretty name it calls itself — Grace! it remains, as is obvious, the privilege of”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche

“Little Fly
Thy summers play,
My thoughtless hand
Has brush'd away.

Am not I
A fly like thee?
Or art not thou
A man like me?

For I dance
And drink & sing:
Till some blind hand
Shall brush my wing.

If thought is life
And strength & breath:
And the want
Of thought is death;

Then am I
A happy fly,
If I live,
Or if I die”
― William Blake, Songs of Innocence and of Experience

“When the sins of our fathers visit us
We do not have to play host.
We can banish them with forgiveness
As God, in his His Largeness and Laws.”
― August Wilson, Fences

“Consciousness, for instance, is infinitely superior to twice two makes four. Once you have mathematical certainty there is nothing left to do or to understand. There will be nothing left but to bottle up your five senses and plunge into contemplation. While if you stick to consciousness, even though the same result is attained, you can at least flog yourself at times, and that will, at any rate, liven you up. Reactionary as it is, corporal punishment is better than nothing.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes from the Underground