Conor

“THERE were two “Reigns of Terror,” if we would but remember it and consider it; the one wrought murder in hot passion, the other in heartless cold blood; the one lasted mere months, the other had lasted a thousand years; the one inflicted death upon ten thousand persons, the other upon a hundred millions; but our shudders are all for the “horrors” of the minor Terror, the momentary Terror, so to speak; whereas, what is the horror of swift death by the axe, compared with lifelong death from hunger, cold, insult, cruelty, and heart-break? What is swift death by lightning compared with death by slow fire at the stake? A city cemetery could contain the coffins filled by that brief Terror which we have all been so diligently taught to shiver at and mourn over; but all France could hardly contain the coffins filled by that older and real Terror—that unspeakably bitter and awful Terror which none of us has been taught to see in its vastness or pity as it deserves.”
― Mark Twain, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

“Yea, foolish mortals, Noah's flood is not yet subsided; two thirds of the fair world it yet covers.”
― Herman Melville, Moby-Dick or, The Whale

“All my means are sane, my motive and my object mad.”
― Herman Melville, Moby-Dick or, The Whale

“These things sneak up on him for no reason, these flashes of irrational happiness. It's probably a vitamin deficiency.”
― Margaret Atwood, Oryx and Crake