Joe

“It behooves us ill to look back and point fingers, saying, ‘Ah, that should not have happened. That should not have been allowed.’ Such a perspective is granted only to men staring backward, Sir William. For those of us with the will to go forward, it is as if we walk blindfolded into a dark room. Not every false step or stumble can be judged after the moment has passed, nor should it be.”
― Conn Iggulden, Stormbird

“Civilization is a kind of prayer: that by right action we might bring to pass the peace and quiet that is the ardent desire of every decent heart. But nature resists, for even in the heart of so great a city as Meidua, on so civilized a world as Delos, a young man might simply take a wrong turn and be set upon by brigands. No prayer is perfect, nor any city.”
― Christopher Ruocchio, Empire of Silence

“The prevention of evil will always require more than desirable social arrangements: it will forever require personal self-control and the conscious limitation of appetites.”
― Theodore Dalrymple, Our Culture, What's Left Of It

“but already there were so many laws that a man was either a lawbreaker or a hypocrite.”
― Theodore Wheeler, Kings of Broken Things