“Quiet authority accomplishes what violence cannot, and that mandate compels more which comes from a commanding calm.”

“Humankind is commanded to ascend from savagery. This is God's mandate, which cries out from the epicenter of our being: the imperative to mount from the base to the noble, from the savage to the civil, from beast to human.”

“With regard to the abuse of authority, this also may come about in two ways. First, when what is ordered by an authority is opposed to the object for which that authority was constituted (if, for example, some sinful action is commanded or one which is contrary to virtue, when it is precisely for the protection and fostering of virtue that authority is instituted). In such a case, not only is there no obligation to obey the authority, but one is obliged to disobey it, as did the holy martyrs who suffered death rather than obey the impious commands of tyrants. Secondly, when those who bear such authority command things which exceed the competence of such authority; as, for example, when a master demands payment from a servant which the latter is not bound to make, and other similar cases. In this instance the subject is free to obey or disobey.”

“Follow effective action with quiet reflection. From the quiet reflection will come even more effective action.”

“There is a fullness and calmness there which can come only from knowing pain.”

“Books may preach when the author cannot, when the author may not, when the author dares not, yes, and which is more, when the author is not.”

“When you vote, you are exercising political authority, you're using force. And force, my friends, is violence. The supreme authority from which all other authorities are derived.”

“This violence is a calm that disturbs you.”

“What end impersonal, what breathless age,
Incontinent of quiet and of years,
What calm catastrophe will yet assuage
This final drouth of penitential tears?”

“The presence of God calms the soul, and gives it quiet and repose.”