““Why did I never understand…”
“That it was vanity?” I said.
“Mm, but so much worse… Delusion. Because, the thing is—human progress begins, not with one lone man with a weapon, however heroic. Nor with subtle governments, be they never so altruistic. It begins with a man and his wife in bed… and… how could I ever hope to govern humanity, without having been even that human?”
Source: The Sons of Heaven (2007), Chapter 12, Section 1 “Three Months: Extract from the Journal of the Botanist Mendoza: Monsters and Ice Cream” (p. 156)
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Kage Baker 79
American writer 1952–2010Related quotes

To Leon Goldensohn, May 24, 1946, from "The Nuremberg Interviews" by Leon Goldensohn, Robert Gellately - History - 2004 - Page 71

68
1940s–present, Minority Report : H.L. Mencken's Notebooks (1956)

Então Jesus voltou lentamente o rosto para ela e disse. Não conheço mulher. Maria segurou-lhe as mãos, Assim temos de começar todos, homens que não conheciam mulher, mulheres que não conheciam homem, um dia o que sabia ensinou, o que não sabia aprendeu.
Source: The Gospel According to Jesus Christ (1991), p. 235

“One can begin so many things with a new person! - even begin to be a better man.”
Source: Middlemarch

About King Charles II of England, as quoted in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine Vol. XLIV (January - June 1857) p. 592; It is said to that this was written on the door of Charles II’s bedchamber, and that on seeing it, the king replied, “This is very true: for my words are my own, and my actions are my ministers’....”
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Stone Ridge School of the Sacred Heart graduation commencement speech https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJSOOYx6wYM, .
2010s