“To be around someone whose self-confidence is more than what our first glance led us to expect is seductive.”

Section 93
The True Believer (1951), Part Three: United Action and Self-Sacrifice
Context: People whose lives are barren and insecure seem to show a greater willingness to obey than people who are self-sufficient and self-confident. To the frustrated, freedom from responsibility is more attractive than freedom from restraint. They are eager to barter their independence for relief of the burdens of willing, deciding and being responsible for inevitable failure. They willingly abdicate the directing of their lives to those who want to plan, command and shoulder all responsibility.

The Life of Pope http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/5101
Lives of the English Poets (1779–81)

Extract from Suo Motto statement made in the Parliament, after India’s underground nuclear tests conducted on 11 May 1998.[Sujata K. Dass, Atal Bihari Vajpayee: Prime Minister of India, http://books.google.com/books?id=N8wnA7EtB0IC, 1 January 2004, Gyan Publishing House, 978-81-7835-277-0, 39]

Source: My Sister's Keeper

"Unsaid" http://www.danagioia.net/poems/unsaid.htm
Poetry, Interrogations at Noon (2001)

Reading as Construction (1980)