📚Marginalia

Books are mirrors; you only see in them what you already have inside you.

Having the courage to find a better path is having the courage to risk making new mistakes.

History is written by the victorious, the liars, the strongest, the most determined. Truth is found most often in the silence, in the quiet places.

If we are simply walking a path preordained, then all the experiences that make us who we are - love, grief, joy, learning, changing - would count for nothing.

The truth, I discovered, is a tree that grows as a man gains access to experience. A child sees the acorn of his daily life, but a man looks back on the oak.

When you cut pieces from the truth to avoid sounding like a fool, you end up sounding like a moron.

Cruelty is a skill taught not only by example, but by experience of it.

The most fiendish of men, the most cowardly, none of them think of them as villains. They believe themselves to be heroes, accomplishing impossible tasks against overwhelming opposition.

They convince themselves of this by seeing only what they wish to see, robbing words of their message, forgetting the real and remembering the false. In this way, they are not so different from true heroes.

What is the difference?

True heroes are on our side.

Fiendish, cowardly, treacherous villains are the heroes of our enemies.

An excess of courage, in the wrong circumstances, in the wrong place, and at the wrong time, can have far worse consequences than cowardice.

Human beings always feel emotions, though by training, inclination, or circumstances, they cannot and do not always act upon them.