Shema

“It was a hymn with the force of a march, a march with the majesty of a hymn. It was a song of soldiers bearing sacred banners and of priests carrying swords. It was an anthem to the sanctity of strength.”
― Ayn Rand, We the Living

“We can’t fight against evil. That’s the most unbearable thing about the world we have built. Evil can’t be eradicated, can’t be locked up, the more violence we use against it, the stronger it becomes when it seeps out under doors and through keyholes. It can never disappear because it grows inside us, sometimes even in the best of us, sometimes even in fourteen-year-olds. We have no weapons against it. We have only been given love as a gift in order to cope with it.”
― Fredrik Backman, The Winners

“We become what we are told we are. Ana has always been told that she’s wrong.”
― Fredrik Backman, Beartown

“So the first thing that happens in a conflict is that we choose a side, because that’s easier than trying to hold two thoughts in our heads at the same time. The second thing that happens is that we seek out facts that confirm what we want to believe—comforting facts, ones that permit life to go on as normal. The third is that we dehumanize our enemy. There are many ways of doing that, but none is easier than taking her name away from her.”
― Fredrik Backman, Beartown