Tom

“The story of the Danish Jews is sui generis, and the behavior of the Danish people and their government was unique among all the countries of Europe--whether occupied, or a partner of the Axis, or neutral and truly independent. One is tempted to recommend the story as required reading in political science for all students who wish to learn something about the enormous power potential inherent in non-violent action and in resistance to an opponent possessing vastly superior means of violence... It is the only case we know of in which the Nazis met with open native resistance, and the result seems to have been that those exposed to it changed their minds. They themselves apparently no longer looked upon the extermination of a whole people as a matter of course. They had met resistance based on principle, and their 'toughness' had melted like butter in the sun; they had even been able to show a few timid beginnings of genuine courage.”
― Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil

“There's many a best-seller that could have been prevented by a good teacher.”
― Flannery O'Connor, Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose

“What was morally so disastrous in the acceptance of these privileged categories was that everyone who demanded to have an 'exception' made in his case implicitly recognized the rule, but this point, apparently, was never grasped by these 'good men,' Jewish and Gentile, who busied themselves about all those 'special cases' for which preferential treatment could be asked... But if the Jewish and Gentile pleaders of 'special cases' were unaware of their involuntary complicity, this implicit recognition of the rule, which spelled death for all non-special cases, must have been very obvious to those who were engaged in the business of murder. They must have felt, at least, that by being asked to make exceptions, and by occasionally granting them, and thus earning gratitude, they had convinced their opponents of the lawfulness of what they were doing.”
― Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil

“I'll tell you this. I've labored all my life. I've baked and brewed. I've woven, spun, and dyed. I've kept my husband's house and raised his young. And many other things besides. So where was time for holiness? What strength was left for faith? Let monks and nuns and priests have care of that. The dead shall rise? The Lord himself will sit as justicer in manor court? It may be true for all I know. But in the meanwhile bread, beer, work, and rest at night, they're truth enough for me.”
― Frederick Buechner, Godric