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Violence, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn once observed, finds refuge in falsehood, even as falsehood is supported by violence. "Anyone who has once acclaimed violence as his method must inexorably choose falsehood as his principle." (Solzhenitsyn's 1972 Nobel Prize acceptance speech) A practical rule can be deduced. Where there is violence, look for falsehood; where there is falsehood, look for violence. If Solzhenitsyn is correct, they go together. — George Hunsinger

Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. — Voltaire

We must be willing to get rid of the life we've planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us. — Joseph Campbell

Civil disobedience becomes a sacred duty when the state has become lawless or corrupt. And a citizen who barters with such a state shares in its corruption and lawlessness. . . . Disobedience to be civil implies discipline, thought, care, attention. . . . Non-cooperation with evil is as much a duty as cooperation with good. . . . Nonviolent action without the cooperation of the heart and the head cannot produce the intended result. — Mohandas Gandhi

Beyond talent lie all the usual words: discipline, love, luck—but, most of all, endurance. — James Baldwin

Chances are good that you can generate the desire for a more comprehensive social or theological analysis from the ground of concrete involvement. Chances are slim that you can generate concrete involvement simply from a comprehensive analysis. In fact, analysis devoid of conviction often becomes a substitute for conviction. — Ken Sehested

Begin to weave and God will give you the thread. — German proverb

It is not at all clear that these three features of modern society—fun industries, fashions, and celebrity cult—banish boredom. Analogy with aspirin is appropriate: high dosage means not the absence but the presence of pain. — Orrin E. Klapp

Most of us want to be safe. We want to find a cocoon, a spiritually, psychologically, economically, and physically gated community in which to live without danger and disturbance. The care-free life, a life a-cedia, is our cultural ideal. — R.R. Reno

We may say this of the face of Sloth: . . . it is the face of those . . . in whom the sap seems never to have arisen. — Henry Fairlie