“O conscience, upright and stainless, how bitter a sting to thee is little fault!”
Dante Alighieri book Purgatorio
Canto III, lines 8–9 (tr. C. E. Norton).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Purgatorio
"The Gold that Glittered"
Strictly Business (1910)
“O conscience, upright and stainless, how bitter a sting to thee is little fault!”
Dante Alighieri book Purgatorio
Canto III, lines 8–9 (tr. C. E. Norton).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Purgatorio
Saul Williams (1972) American singer, musician, poet, writer, and actor
Source: , said the shotgun to the head.
Marion Zimmer Bradley (1930–1999) Novelist, editor
Source: Introduction to Hawk’s Hill in Marion Zimmer Bradley (ed.), Sword and Sorceress 7 (1990), p. 183
David Brinkley (1920–2003) American journalist
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1842&dat=19961118&id=jHw0AAAAIBAJ&sjid=AckEAAAAIBAJ&pg=1354,2780351
Malcolm X (1925–1965) American human rights activist
The Ballot or the Bullet (1964), Speech in Cleveland, Ohio (April 3, 1964)
Context: Don’t change the white man’s mind—you can’t change his mind, and that whole thing about appealing to the moral conscience of America—America’s conscience is bankrupt. She lost all conscience a long time ago. Uncle Sam has no conscience. They don’t know what morals are. They don’t try and eliminate an evil because it’s evil, or because it’s illegal, or because it’s immoral; they eliminate it only when it threatens their existence. So you’re wasting your time appealing to the moral conscience of a bankrupt man like Uncle Sam. If he had a conscience, he’d straighten this thing out with no more pressure being put upon him. So it is not necessary to change the white man’s mind.
“Tender-handed stroke a nettle,
And it stings you for your pains”
Aaron Hill (writer) (1685–1750) British writer
Verses Written on a Window in Scotland.
Context: Tender-handed stroke a nettle,
And it stings you for your pains;
Grasp it like a man of mettle,
And it soft as silk remains.’Tis the same with common natures:
Use ’em kindly, they rebel;
But be rough as nutmeg-graters,
And the rogues obey you well.
Richard Wolffe (1968) American journalist
Let's drop the euphemisms: Donald Trump is a racist president (2018)
Muhammad Ali book The Soul of a Butterfly
"The Silent Warrior", dedicated to Joe Frazier and his family, p. 112
The Soul of a Butterfly (2004)