My civil neighbor, the tax-gatherer, is the very man I have to deal with,--for it is, after all, with men and not with parchment t...hat I quarrel,--and he has voluntarily chosen to be an agent of the government. How shall he ever know well what he is and does as an officer of the government, or as a man, until he is obliged to consider whether he shall treat me, his neighbor, for whom he has respect, as a neighbor and well-disposed man, or as a maniac and disturber of the peace, and see if he can get over this obstruction to his neighborliness without a ruder and more impetuous thought or speech corresponding with his action.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
In contrast to revenge, which is the natural, automatic reaction to transgression and which, because of the irreversibility of the... action process can be expected and even calculated, the act of forgiving can never be predicted; it is the only reaction that acts in an unexpected way and thus retains, though being a reaction, something of the original character of action.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Police officer: Say chief. This fellow Comante.... Public's interested in him. He's a colorful character. Chief Detective: Co...lorful. What color is a trawling louse? Say listen, that's the attitude of too many morons in this country. They think these big hoodlums are some sort of demagogues. Whad a they do about a guy like Comante, they sentimentalize him. Romance. Make jokes about 'em. They had some excuse for glorifying our old Western badmen. They met in the middle of the street at high noon waiting for each other to draw. But these fiends sneak up, shoot a guy in the back, and then run away. Colorful ... When I think what goes on in the minds of these lice, I wanna vomit.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
There was something so free and self-contained about him, something in the young fellow's movements, that made that officer aware ...of him. And this irritated the Prussian. He did not choose to be touched into life by his servant.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home--so close and so small that they cannot be seen ...on any map of the world. Yet they are the world of the individual person: The neighborhood he lives in; the school or college he attends; the factory, farm or office where he works. Such are the places where every man, woman and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination. Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere. Without concerted citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
In Vietnam, some of us lost control of our lives. I want my life back. I almost feel like I've been missing in action for twenty-t...wo years.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
When Prince William [later King William IV] was at Cork in 1787, an old officer ... dined with him, and happened to say he had bee...n forty years in the service. The Prince with a sneer asked what he had learnt in those forty years. The old gentleman justly offended, said, "Sir, I have learnt, when I am no longer fit to fight, to make as good a retreat as I can" --and walked out of the room.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Go to the ant, you lazybones; consider its ways, and be wise. Without having any chief or officer or ruler, it prepares its food i...n summer, and gathers its sustenance in harvest.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »