“There is a kind of selective memory that afflicts men when they view the past. They see the good and overlook the evil.”

“My enemies, I thank you! You are who trained me to be patient, to respond to the evil with the good and to overlook.”

“Vin, Vin. can't you see? This isn't about good or evil. Morality doesn't even enter into it. Good men will kill as quickly for what they want as evil men—only the things they want are different.”

“If the Soul sees, after death, what passes on this earth, and watches over the welfare of those it loves, then must its greatest happiness consist in seeing the current of its beneficent influences widening out from age to age, as rivulets widen into rivers, and aiding to shape the destinies of individuals, families, States, the World; and its bitterest punishment, in seeing its evil influences causing mischief and misery, and cursing and afflicting men, long after the frame it dwelt in has become dust, and when both name and memory are forgotten.”

“Men are in error when they lament the flight of time, accusing it of being too swift, and not perceiving that it is sufficient as it passes; but good memory, with which nature has endowed us, causes things long past to seem present.”

“See the good in that which is evil, and the evil in that which is good.”

“When good people in any country cease their vigilance and struggle, then evil men prevail.”

“And as, in ethics, Evil is a consequence of Good, so, in fact, out of Joy is sorrow born. Either the memory of past bliss is the anguish of to-day, or the agonies which are, have their origin in the ecstasies which might have been.”

“We should never forget that values of the past are first overlooked when a change is necessary, but later they are understood and re-established.”

“We are all the sum total of our pasts, good and evil.”