“Everyone has heard of Canterbury if only because they murder archbishops there.”

— Michael Powell

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Michael Powell 16

English film director 1905–1990

George MacDonald Fraser Flashman at the Charge

Source: Flashman at the Charge

““Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?” asked Henry II as he instigated the murder of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Becket, in 1170. Down through the ages, presidents and princes around the world have been murderers and accessories to murder, as the great Harvard sociologist Pitirim Sorokin and Walter Lunden documented in statistical detail in their masterwork Power and Morality. One of their main findings was that the behavior of ruling groups tends to be more criminal and amoral than that of the people over whom they rule.”

Jeffrey D. Sachs (1954) American economist

Killer Politicians, Project Syndicate - The World's Opinion Page, Oct 24, 2018 https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/killer-politicians-include-american-presidents-by-jeffrey-d-sachs-2018-10

“There is a singer everyone has heard”

Robert Frost (1874–1963) American poet

The Oven Bird (1916)
Context: There is a singer everyone has heard,
Loud, a mid-summer and a mid-wood bird,
Who makes the solid tree trunks sound again.
He says that leaves are old and that for flowers
Mid-summer is to spring as one to ten.
He says the early petal-fall is past
When pear and cherry bloom went down in showers
On sunny days a moment overcast;
And comes that other fall we name the fall.
He says the highway dust is over all.
The bird would cease and be as other birds
But that he knows in singing not to sing.
The question that he frames in all but words
Is what to make of a diminished thing.

“Interactivity has the virtue of democracy, conferring upon everyone with access to a computer the right and opportunity to be heard, but it's also saddled with democracy's vice — a tendency to assume that everyone who has a right to be heard has something to say that's worth hearing.”

Wendy Kaminer (1949) American lawyer

Sleeping with Extra-Terrestrials: The Rise of Irrationalism and Perils of Piety (2000), p. 233

“We welcome almost any break in the monotony of things, and a man has only to murder a series of wives in a new way to become known to millions of people who have never heard of Homer.”

Robert Wilson Lynd (1879–1949) Irish writer

The New Statesman, 22 October 1921 http://books.google.com/books?id=2UEyAQAAMAAJ&q=%22We+welcome+almost+any+break+in+the+monotony+of+things+and+a+man+has+only+to+murder+a+series+of+wives+in+a+new+way+to+become+known+to+millions+of+people+who+have+never+heard+of+Homer%22&pg=PA70#v=onepage

“Millions of the noblest of the human race never heard of this creed. Millions of the bravest and best have heard of it, examined, and rejected it. Millions of the most infamous have believed it, and because of their belief, or notwithstanding their belief, have murdered millions of their fellows.”

Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer

Rome, or Reason? A Reply to Cardinal Manning. Part I. The North American Review (1888)
Context: "Whosoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold the Catholic faith." It is not necessary, before all things, that he be good, honest, merciful, charitable and just. Creed is more important than conduct. The most important of all things is, that he hold the Catholic faith. There were thousands of years during which it was not necessary to hold that faith, because that faith did not exist; and yet during that time the virtues were just as important as now, just as important as they ever can be. Millions of the noblest of the human race never heard of this creed. Millions of the bravest and best have heard of it, examined, and rejected it. Millions of the most infamous have believed it, and because of their belief, or notwithstanding their belief, have murdered millions of their fellows. We know that men can be, have been, and are just as wicked with it as without it.