“Ah, but ignorance is better. At least then there's hope.”

"Old Mortality" in Pale Horse (1939)
Context: I don't want any promises, I won't have false hopes, I won't be romantic about myself. I can't live in their world any longer, she told herself, listening to the voices back of her. Let them tell their stories to each other. Let them go on explaining how things happened. I don't care. At least I can know the truth about what happens to me, she assured herself silently, making a promise to herself, in her hopefulness, her ignorance.

Source: Life Beyond Measure (2008), twenty-third letter — The World I Leave You, p. 273

The Works of Publius Virgilius Maro (2nd ed. 1654), Virgil's Æneis

Signs of Change (1888), How We Live And How We Might Live
Context: The word Revolution, which we Socialists are so often forced to use, has a terrible sound in most people's ears, even when we have explained to them that it does not necessarily mean a change accompanied by riot and all kinds of violence, and cannot mean a change made mechanically and in the teeth of opinion by a group of men who have somehow managed to seize on the executive power for the moment. Even when we explain that we use the word revolution in its etymological sense, and mean by it a change in the basis of society, people are scared at the idea of such a vast change, and beg that you will speak of reform and not revolution. As, however, we Socialists do not at all mean by our word revolution what these worthy people mean by their word reform, I can't help thinking that it would be a mistake to use it, whatever projects we might conceal beneath its harmless envelope. So we will stick to our word, which means a change of the basis of society; it may frighten people, but it will at least warn them that there is something to be frightened about, which will be no less dangerous for being ignored; and also it may encourage some people, and will mean to them at least not a fear, but a hope.

To Mother Mary, Superior General, Ruille-sur-Loir, 1852-02-18.
Context: ... they wish to make us pay taxes, which is contrary to the laws of the State. We refuse positively. It embarrasses them a little to have women resist them and speak to them about the law. Woman in this country is only yet one fourth of the family. I hope that, through the influence of religion and education, she will eventually become at least one half the "better half."

1980s

"Prophetic Pictures at Venice II: The Temptation", p. 199.
The Coming of Love and Other Poems (1897)

On dragging his child stars out of a pub while directing The Railway Children; Times obituary 19 February 2010 http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/film/article7034483.ece

The Sayings of the Wise (1555)