Advice is what we ask for when we already know the answer but wish we didn’t.
Erica Jong
“Master, what is it that I hear? Who are those people so defeated by their pain?”
And he to me: “This miserable way is taken by the sorry souls of those who lived without disgrace and without praise. They now commingle with the coward angels, the company of those who were not rebels nor faithful to their God, but stood apart. The heavens, that their beauty not be lessened, have cast them out, nor will deep Hell receive them - even the wicked cannot glory in them.”
And I: “What is it, master, that oppresses these souls, compelling them to wail so loud?”
He answered: “I shall tell you in few words. Those who are here can place no hope in death, and their blind life is so abject that they are envious of every other fate. The world will let no fame of theirs endure; both justice and compassion must disdain them; let us not talk of them, but look and pass.”
Dante Alighieri, Inferno, canto iii http://www.online-literature.com/dante/inferno/
And lastly, John F. Kennedy’s take on the third Canto: The hottest places in Hell are reserved for those who in time of moral crisis preserve their neutrality.
The world, at the best of times, is an uncertain place. The world in 2012 is uncertain, unstable, and unpredictable. We need President Obama to step up and assume the mantle of the position the people of America have bestowed upon him.
We need him to act like the President of the United States.
In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.
George Orwell
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You are not entitled to your opinion. You are entitled to your informed opinion. No one is entitled to be ignorant.
Harlan Ellison