
Commencement Address at Middlebury College May, 2001 http://web.archive.org/web/20030906163501/http://www.middlebury.edu/offices/pubaff/general_info/addresses/Fred_Rogers_2001.htm
Letter to F. Scott Fitzgerald (28 May 1934); published in Ernest Hemingway: Selected Letters 1917–1961 (1981) edited by Carlos Baker
Commencement Address at Middlebury College May, 2001 http://web.archive.org/web/20030906163501/http://www.middlebury.edu/offices/pubaff/general_info/addresses/Fred_Rogers_2001.htm
2000s, Thus Spake Stallman (2000)
Context: Religious people often say that religion offers absolute certainty about right and wrong; "god tells them" what it is. Even supposing that the aforementioned gods exist, and that the believers really know what the gods think, that still does not provide certainty, because any being no matter how powerful can still be wrong. Whether gods exist or not, there is no way to get absolute certainty about ethics. Without absolute certainty, what do we do? We do the best we can. Injustice is happening now; suffering is happening now. We have choices to make now. To insist on absolute certainty before starting to apply ethics to life decisions is a way of choosing to be amoral.
“We do not make up history and culture. We simply appear, not by our own choice.”
Great Jewish Short Stories, introduction to the Dell paperback edition (1963)
General sources
Context: We are all such accidents. We do not make up history and culture. We simply appear, not by our own choice. We make what we can of our condition with the means available. We must accept the mixture as we find it — the impurity of it, the tragedy of it, the hope of it.
"Lord Roberts and Germany", p. 78
Unionist Policy and Other Essays (1913)
“See? That's what happens when you keep people from doing what they do best: It makes them insane.”
Det. Robert Goren in Law & Order: Criminal Intent.
Law & Order: Criminal Intent
Hansard, House of Commons, 5th series, vol. 373, col. 1362.
Speech in the House of Commons, 29 July 1941.
Source: A Theory of Justice (1971; 1975; 1999), Chapter IX, Section 84, p. 558
“Malraux and the Statues at Bamberg”, p. 191
A Sad Heart at the Supermarket: Essays & Fables (1962)