Joseph

“Every single empire in its official discourse has said that it is not like all the others, that its circumstances are special, that it has a mission to enlighten, civilize, bring order and democracy, and that it uses force only as a last resort. And, sadder still, there always is a chorus of willing intellectuals to say calming words about benign or altruistic empires, as if one shouldn't trust the evidence of one's eyes watching the destruction and the misery and death brought by the latest mission civilizatrice.”
― Edward W. Said, Orientalism

“Jesus was not a Christian, nor was Marx a Marxist.”
― Eric Hoffer, The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements

“He who can destroy a thing has the real control of it.”
― Frank Herbert, Dune

“Somehow it is not the smile of a human being: it utterly lacks substance, all of what we might call the "heaviness of blood" or perhaps the "solidity of human life"—it has not even a bird's weight. It is merely a blank sheet of paper, light as a feather, and it is smiling.”
― Osamu Dazai, No Longer Human