“But we are all victims, Captain Bastable, just as in other ways we are all aggressors. At root we are victims to the comforting lies we tell ourselves, of our willingness to shift moral responsibility onto leaders, organized religion—onto a deity or a race, if all else fails. Onto God, onto politicians, onto creatures from other planets. It is always the same impulse, to refuse responsibility. If we do not take responsibility for our own actions, ultimately we perish.”

—  Michael Moorcock, book The Steel Tsar

Book 2, Chapter 7 “A Mechanical Man” (p. 395)
The Steel Tsar (1981)

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Michael Moorcock224
English writer, editor, critic 1939

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