“To my confusion, and eternal grief,
I must approve the sentence that destroys me.”

Act III, scene ii.
Cato, A Tragedy (1713)

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Joseph Addison226

politician, writer and playwright 1672–1719

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“A minister says to me that I am going to hell—that I am bound to be punished forever and ever—and thereupon I say to him: “There is no hell you are mistaken; your Bible is not inspired; no human being is to suffer agony forever;” and thereupon, with an injured look, he asks me this question: “Why do you hurt my feelings?” It does not occur to him that I have the slightest right to object to his sentence of eternal grief.”

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

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“We often confuse unconditional love with unconditional approval.”

Henri Nouwen (1932–1996) Dutch priest and writer

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Context: We often confuse unconditional love with unconditional approval. God loves us without conditions but does not approve of every human behavior. God doesn’t approve of betrayal, violence, hatred, suspicion, and all other expressions of evil, because they all contradict the love God wants to instill in the human heart. Evil is the absence of God’s love.

“When I destroyed my unwanted children, it was murder. When Yahweh did the same, it was eugenics. Do you approve of the universe, Ham?”

James K. Morrow (1947) (1947-) science fiction author

"Bible Stories for Adults, No. 17: The Deluge" p. 11 (originally published in Full Spectrum, edited by Lou Aronica and Shawna McCarthy)
Short fiction, Bible Stories for Adults (1996)

“20 years. Well … that's fair enough. They couldn't have given me a lighter sentence, considering the facts, and I can't complain. I said the sentences must be severe, and I admitted my share of the guilt, so it would be ridiculous if I complained about the punishment.”

Albert Speer (1905–1981) German architect, Minister of Armaments and War Production for Nazi Germany

To Dr. G. M. Gilbert, after receiving his sentence. Quoted in "Nuremberg Diary" by G. M. Gilbert - History - (1995)

“The first rose on my rose-tree
Budded, bloomed, and shattered,
During sad days when to me
Nothing mattered.

Grief of grief has drained me clean;
Still it seems a pity
No one saw,—it must have been
Very pretty.”

Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892–1950) American poet

Source: Renascence and Other Poems

“Towards the avoidance of a piece of verbal confusion: What is intended to be actively destroyed must first of all have been firmly grasped; what crumbles away crumbles away, but cannot be destroyed.”

Franz Kafka book The Zürau Aphorisms

91
The Zürau Aphorisms (1917 - 1918)

“If you wish me to weep, you yourself
Must first feel grief.”
Si vis me flere, dolendum est primum ipsi tibi.

Horace Ars Poetica

Source: Ars Poetica, or The Epistle to the Pisones (c. 18 BC), Line 102

“The worm that destroys you is the temptation to agree with your critics, to get their approval.”

Thomas Harris book Hannibal

Source: Hannibal

“You heard me in my tune when I just heard confusion.”

Bono (1960) Irish rock musician, singer of U2

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“I do not need any promise of eternity to be happy. My eternity is now. I have only one interest: to fulfill my purpose here where I am. This purpose is not given me by my parents or my surroundings. It is induced by some unknown factors. These factors make me a part of eternity.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Source: Attributed in posthumous publications, Einstein and the Poet (1983), p. 103

“To my confusion, and eternal grief,I must approve the sentence that destroys me.”

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Joseph Addison226

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“To my confusion, and eternal grief,
I must approve the sentence that destroys me.”