“Dangerous is a people's voice charged with wrath.”
Source: Oresteia (458 BC), Agamemnon, line 456 (tr. Herbert Weir Smyth)
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Aeschylus 119
ancient Athenian playwright -525–-456 BCRelated quotes
Source: Statecraft: Strategies for a Changing World, p. 104
Book of Taliesin (c. 1275?), The Elegy of the Thousand Sons
Context: I will offer a prayer to the Trinity,
May the Eternal grant me to praise thee!
In the present course, dangerous
Our work; destruction is a slight impulse of wrath.
They reckon of the saints a tribe,
King of heaven, may I be eloquent about thee!
Before the separation of my soul from my flesh.
Original short-story, "The Stainless Steel Rat" in Astounding magazine (August 1957) http://www.iol.ie/~carrollm/hh/ssrshort.htm
The Stainless Steel Rat
Context: When the office door opened suddenly I knew the game was up. It had been a money-maker — but it was all over. As the cop walked in I sat back in the chair and put on a happy grin. He had the same sombre expression and heavy foot that they all have — and the same lack of humour. I almost knew to the word what he was going to say before he uttered a syllable.
"James Bolivar diGriz I arrest you on the charge—"
I was waiting for the word charge, I thought it made a nice touch that way. As he said it I pressed the button that set off the charge of black powder in the ceiling, the crossbeam buckled and the three-ton safe dropped through right on the top of the cop's head. He squashed very nicely, thank you. The cloud of plaster dust settled and all I could see of him was one hand, slightly crumpled. It twitched a bit and the index finger pointed at me accusingly. His voice was a little muffled by the safe and sounded a bit annoyed. In fact he repeated himself a bit.
"On the charge of illegal entry, theft, forgery—"
He ran on like that for quite a while, it was an impressive list but I had heard it all before. I didn't let it interfere with my stuffing all the money from the desk drawers into my suitcase. The list ended with a new charge and I would swear on a stack of thousand credit notes that high that there was a hurt tone in his voice.
"In addition the charge of assaulting a police robot will be added to your record."
Letter to https://www.loc.gov/resource/mjm.06_0574_0575/?sp=1 Thomas Jefferson (13 May 1798); published in Letters and Other Writings of James Madison (1865), Vol. II, p. 141
1790s
“I feel no wrath against the people, I am only doing my duty.”
Speech in the House of Commons in the aftermath of the Peterloo massacre, introducing a Bill to outlaw such radical meetings, prevent the training of dissidents, and seize arms (3 December 1819).
Source: The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
