Stephen Schmitt

“There are some things that it is better to begin than to refuse, even though the end may be dark.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers

“I let out a battle cry. Sure, a lot of people might have mistaken it for a sudden yelp of unmanly fear, but trust me: It was a battle cry.”
― Jim Butcher, Side Jobs: Stories from the Dresden Files

“War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things: the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth a war, is much worse. When a people are used as mere human instruments for firing cannon or thrusting bayonets, in the service and for the selfish purposes of a master, such war degrades a people. A war to protect other human beings against tyrannical injustice; a war to give victory to their own ideas of right and good, and which is their own war, carried on for an honest purpose by their free choice, — is often the means of their regeneration. A man who has nothing which he is willing to fight for, nothing which he cares more about than he does about his personal safety, is a miserable creature who has no chance of being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. As long as justice and injustice have not terminated their ever-renewing fight for ascendancy in the affairs of mankind, human beings must be willing, when need is, to do battle for the one against the other.”
― John Stuart Mill, Principles of Political Economy

“A democracy isn’t about freedom, it’s about representation,” Corsia replied. “A people can choose representatives who strip away their freedoms—be it on purpose or otherwise—while a dictator can operate benevolently. Not that either always work that way, but do not confuse the right to vote in an election with freedom.”
― M.D. Cooper, War on a Thousand Fronts